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800.860.0300 
What can hackers do with your phone number, home address, email address, interests, and information on your children’s ages and genders? The answer, unfortunately, is a lot.
In a recent leak, marketing and data aggregation firm Exactis exposed nearly 340 million individual records on a publicly accessible server, including information on millions of businesses. While Exactis hasn’t confirmed the leak, security researcher Vinny Troia found that nearly 2 terabytes of data had been exposed. In comparison, the 2017 Equifax breach affected 147.9 million consumers at last analysis.
While financial information and Social Security numbers were not part of the Exactis data breach, consumers and businesses should still be on high alert for any sign of potential phishing, scams, or identity theft. With the level of personal information that was exposed, the scams and phishes can be individualized in a very convincing way, making them difficult to detect until it is too late.
The biggest danger for businesses is that through these individualized attacks, an employee caught unawares will allow a hacker entry into the business’ network and systems. Warwick recommends enrolling your company in a Security Awareness Training Program to help educate your staff on the potential avenues and tactics an attacker might use. Increased awareness will also help with adherence to the protective security protocols you should already have in place. Reach out to us to schedule a Training Program for your company.
In addition, Warwick is offering a free cybersecurity webinar on 8/29/18. Register here to learn how to implement tactics to protect your business IT systems.
The bottom line: with hackers, scammers, and thieves gaining access to data like this, consumers need to be savvy and businesses need to make cybersecurity a high priority. If you aren’t sure where to start, need help getting systems in place, or prefer to have your security managed 24/7 by experts, contact Warwick today.
