Endless massive hacks. Home Depot. Target. Neiman Marcus. Michaels. JPMorgan Chase. USPS 800,000 Employee names, DoB, addr, SS#

Lucky you
if you’re not
data hacked
data tracked
data stolen
(when the innocent enjoy sharing,
some are busy sneaking, stealing)
data harassed:

Forbes: Expect Hackers To Crack More Retailers This Holiday Season

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*update 06March2015*
NYTimes - when a hacker put unfinished songs online from Madonna's new album, “Rebel Heart”, her immediate response was, in a rush, to release the finished “I intended to think about things, choose things more slowly — the whole process,” she said. “Then I got forced into putting everything out". She continued: “What started out as an invigorating, life-enhancing, joyous experience evolved into something quite crazy. A strange artistic process, but a sign of the time. We’re all digital, we’re all vulnerable and everything’s instant — so instant. Instant success and instant failure. Instant discovery, instant destruction, instant construction. It’s as splendid and wonderful as it is devastating. Honestly, to me it’s the death of being an artist in many ways.”

Endless series of massive hacks. Home Depot. Target. Neiman Marcus. Michaels. JPMorgan Chase. Each dumping anything from customer credit card numbers to mailing addresses into the wild.
The latest one is a big one: the United States Postal Service.

More Than 800,000 Postal Service Employees Victims Of Data Breach
A USPS spokesman told NPR today that more than 800,000 employees may have been affected. In a statement, USPS said "names, dates of birth, Social Security numbers, addresses, beginning and end dates of employment, emergency contact information" may have been compromised.

WASHINGTON - The Postal Service on Monday became the latest government agency to announce a major theft of data from its computer systems, telling its roughly 800,000 employees and retirees that an attack "potentially compromised" databases containing postal employees’ names, birth dates, addresses and Social Security numbers.

The announcement came just weeks after the White House disclosed an intrusion into its unclassified computer systems, which resulted in a shutdown of some of its communications while the malicious software was being removed.

Home Depot hacked: 53 million email addresses stolen in US and Canada in addition to payment card data
The Atlanta-based home repair retailer in September disclosed a massive data breach that involved 56 million debit and credit cards between April and September.

Lessons From Home Depot: Expect Hackers To Crack More Retailers This Holiday Season

Home Depot Announces Email Addresses Hacked In Addition To Card Numbers

Economic cyberwarfare is on the rise as cyberattacks on US companies are increasing in both frequency and severity. And costs are mounting. According to FBI Director James Comey, “There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who’ve been hacked and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked.”
Over the last year, cyberattacks have compromised financial and personal data - both corporate and consumer - maintained by big-name companies such as Target, Home Depot, J.P. Morgan Chase, eBay, Apple, Yahoo!, UPS, P.F. Chang’s and Dairy Queen. Malware, such as the Backoff malware, has infected more than 1,000 U.S. businesses. According to FBI Director James Comey, “There are two kinds of big companies in the United States. There are those who’ve been hacked and those who don’t know they’ve been hacked.”

JPMorgan Chase, the nation's largest bank by assets, disclosed last week that 76 million households were affected by the breach, which took place over the summer. The bank, the nation's largest by assets, disclosed last week that 76 million households were affected by the breach, which took place over the summer. JPMorgan spokeswoman Trish Wexler said the bank is not offering additional details beyond what it has already announced.

Since disclosing the hack in a regulatory filing last Thursday, JPMorgan has only noted that 76 million households were affected. That's a huge number, just shy of two-thirds of American households, making the breach the largest cyberattack against a bank in history. Yet the company has not disclosed a separate, presumably even larger figure: the number of individual customers whose personal information was compromised.

the US' largest bank, JPMorgan Chase, and 4 other banks hacked, here's what you need to do ("It's not a question of whether you'll be a breach victim, but when," said spokeswoman for ID Theft Resource Center)
Use this as a wake-up call.
Millions of consumers are the victim of some sort of security breach or fraud every year. "It's not a question of whether you'll be a breach victim, but when," said Nikki Junker, spokeswoman for the Identity Theft Resource Center in San Diego.
- Monitor your accounts closely.
- Sign up for text alerts.
- Change your online account password.
- Have deposit accounts at more than one bank.
- Watch out for anything unusual.
- If you have a debit card, consider closing it.
- Watch out for phishing.
This is an ongoing problem: Thieves for years have been sending out mass emails posing as a particular bank (which might coincidentally be yours), or the FBI or whoever else sounds good. The email might tell you that you need to change your password or your account will be closed.

You should never click on links in the emails or reply with any personal information, Junker said.

Banks will never contact you by phone, mail or email and ask for account information or other personal data. If you get a call or email you're not sure of, call the number on your bank statement or on the back of your ATM or credit card.

Phishing gets easier - and creepier - when fraudsters have some information about you, such as your name or address or a partial account number. The phrase for this is "spear phishing," Junker said.

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Image Courtesy TechCrunch, Home Depot (AP / Toby Talbot), and Mike Mozart / Creative Commons