Data Protection Tips – Data breach

Most successful companies know the security issues associated with keeping their data safe. They try their best to trust their efforts to prevent a data security breach from occurring. One thing every business owner or individual is that no security measures are utterly infallible to a breach. Today, businesses should be more worried about the plans of action they are to take after a data breach when all their data protection measures fail. Here are some best practices you can adopt after a data breach has occurred.

1. Change Your Passwords Immediately After A Data Breach

If your company have an account with suffered a data breach, it is advised that you change your password immediately. For instance, if you notice a change in your debit card PIN or any transaction you did not authorize, you will have to report it to your company, get it sorted out, and change your PIN.

2. Verify The Occurrence Of A Breach

Many opportunistic fraudsters are willing to use the excuse of a data breach to trick unsuspecting consumers into handing their passwords and other information over to them. For this reason, if you are ever contacted via email and told of a data breach and the need to update your login, visit the company’s website and confirm if there was indeed a breach or call the company and verify the information from them before responding to the request.

3. Request A New Card

If a company that has issued you a card is affected by a data breach, you must cancel your existing card and request a new one. Requesting a new card will automatically make the previous card invalid and unusable by you or the hackers, but your finances will remain secure. Once you have requested a new card, the company might decide to swap it for free or take a little token for it as a charge.

4. Consider A Credit or Security Freeze

When you suspect or realize that your identity has been stolen, considering a credit freeze is a helpful yet major step in protecting your finances and identity. When you do a credit freeze, you will be restricting access to your credit reports so that thieves attempting to open accounts in your name will be unable to do so because creditors will need to look at your credit report before they can approve a new account. Contact (via email or phone call) each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion) when you want to place a freeze on your credit reports. You will have to supply them with your name, date of birth, address, Social Security number, and other personal information. The fees you will have to pay depending on where you live, but it ranges from $5 to $10.

5. Take Advantage Of Free Credit Monitoring When It Is Offered To You

Suppose your account information was compromised during a data breach in a major corporation. In that case, the company may offer you and all the affected customers free credit monitoring services.

6. Do Not Ignore Reports From Friends About Mysterious Emails Coming From Your Accounts

One of the most common ways a person knows when they have been hacked is when their family members or friends inform them that they have been receiving odd social media messages or emails, or even strange posts on social media profiles. Most people mistake ignoring such signs but ensure that you never do that as it is a sure indicator that your account has been compromised.

7. Get Yourself Acquainted To The Data Breach Warning Signs

Numerous indications will get you on alert when your account has been hacked, your identity has been stolen, or when there is some data breach, so you need to get yourself familiar with all the warning signs of a potential breach so you can be able to put an end to it before it escalates to devastation.

8. Regain Control Over Your Accounts That Were Compromised

Once one of your accounts, especially your email, gets hacked, you need to find a way to regain control even though it’ll be tasking because a smart hacker who is in control of your email will try to gain access to your other accounts, social media, and maybe worse your bank accounts. To take back your control over your email, you’ll need to contact the email provider and prove that you are indeed the real account holder, but this will be hard as you’ll need to have access to the compromised email, which for sure, the hacker would have changed the password. This is why having more than one email address is ideal, as one can serve as an alternate email address. But, if you are using the same password for all your email accounts, there’s a high possibility of all of them getting compromised.

9. Find Out Precisely The Reason For The Breach Or Hack

Do not panic or feel bad when your account gets hacked or the device gets stolen, or data gets lost. Instead, take that as a learning opportunity and identify what you did wrong and the precautions you could have taken to prevent that from happening. Identifying the reason for a breach or hack will help you understand how you can prevent that from ever happening, as you might be able to find out how the hackers got access to your account.