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Online Music Streaming Service Breach Impacts Billions

Online Music Streaming Service Breach Impacts Billions

Our security teams have recently discovered that a former deezer.com partner experienced a data breach in 2019 that has impacted 257 billion users. Deezer is a France-based music streaming platform. Leaked information includes users’ dates of birth, email addresses, genders, geographic locations, IP addresses, names, spoken languages and/or surnames. The hacking dates back to mid-2019 when a Deezer third-party fell victim to a breach exposing user data, which was then sold on a popular hacking forum.

The hacker claimed that the data breach affects users in the United States, the United Kingdom, Brazil, Columbia, France, Germany, Guatemala, Italy, Mexico and Turkey.

Other music streaming platforms, such as Spotify, have suffered data leaks in recent years. In December 2020, Spotify confirmed that an incident may have affected over 300,000 users’ email addresses, display names, passwords, genders and dates of birth.

Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions exists to protect you, your family, and your employees from the damages of identity theft. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Member Services team immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD).

Photo by Uriel SC via Unsplash.com.

Update for 200 Million Breach

Update for 200 Million Breach

Our security teams have discovered that hackers stole the email addresses of more than 200 million Twitter users  and posted them on an online hacking forum. The Twitter breach origin date was July 2022. Data exposed includes name, phone number, email address and account holder user IDs.

We first reported the breach on December 6, 2022. It is highly recommended to add two-factor authentication. Please contact us if you need assistance.

There were no clues to the identity or the location of the hacker or hackers behind the breach. “It may have taken place as early as 2021, which was before Elon Musk took ownership of the company last year, explained Satter (Reuters News).” Learn more HERE.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD).

Photo courtesy of Bermix Studios via unspash.com.

FBI’s Vetted Threat Sharing Network Hacked

FBI’s Vetted Threat Sharing Network Hacked

Just recently, our security teams have discovered large data sets of compromised cyber elements on the Dark Web. The breached site is InfraGard.org, which is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and key members of the private sector for the protection of the United States critical infrastructure.

InfraGard members are in roles involved in both cyber and physical security at companies that manage most of the nation’s critical infrastructures, including drinking water, power utilities, communication and financial services firms, transportation and manufacturing companies, healthcare providers and nuclear energy firms.

The breach origin date is December 2022 and data exposed includes their members’ contact information, such as name, email and phone numbers. The FBI stated that “this is an ongoing situation” and that they are “not able to provide any additional information at this time.” Approximately 80,000 InfraGard members are impacted. Learn more HERE.

Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions exists to protect you, your family, and your employees from the damages of identity theft. It has been a pleasure protecting America’s workforce for the last decade. We look forward to many years and much more growth to come.

Be vigilant. Be strong. Stay in the know. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD).

Photo courtesy of Markus Spiske on Unsplash.com.

Twitter Data Breach Alert

Twitter Data Breach Alert

Just recently our security teams have found that Twitter, a popular social media service, has been breached. At least 5.4 million accounts have been compromised. The breach origin date is July, 2022 and data exposed includes name, phone number, email address and account holder user IDs.

Twitter acknowledged publicly that they received a report through their bug bounty program of a vulnerability in Twitter’s systems in January 2022. As a result of the vulnerability, if someone submitted an email address or phone number to Twitter’s systems, Twitter’s systems would tell the person what Twitter account the submitted email address or phone number was associated with, if any. Twitter then explained that the bug resulted from an update to their code in June 2021. When Twitter learned about this, they immediately investigated and fixed it. Twitter announced that at that time, they had no evidence to suggest someone had taken advantage of the vulnerability. Twitter has said that it would directly notify every account owner it could confirm was affected by the exposure. In the meantime, it is highly suggested to add two-factor authentication.

Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions exists to protect you, your family, and your employees from the damages of identity theft. It has been a pleasure protecting America’s workforce for the last decade. We look forward to many years and much more growth to come.

Be vigilant. Be strong. Stay in the know. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD).

Photo courtesy of Bermix Studios via unsplash.com.

8.4B Passwords & 25M Records Stolen

8.4B Passwords & 25M Records Stolen

Just recently our security team found two new breaches involving 25,000,000 stolen records and that 8.4 billion passwords have been stolen and sold on the dark web. We see these breaches all the time. The reality is that out of the 8.5 billion IP addresses worldwide, 3.5 billion of them are malware. That’s correct! Almost half of the worldwide web is created to commit fraud. That’s why we have proudly built a strong partnership with industry powerhouse Experian who jointly provides our member’s identity protection, support, and complete resolution service.

 

Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions exists to protect you, your family, and your employees from the damages of identity theft. It has been a pleasure protecting America’s workforce for the last decade. We look forward to many years and much more growth to come!

 

Be vigilant. Be Strong. Stay in the know. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD).

 

Photo courtesy of unsplash.com Bermix Studios

University of California and StreetEasy: Dark Web Fraud Alert

University of California and StreetEasy: Dark Web Fraud Alert

Our teams have discovered extremely large sets of compromised data on the Dark Web. The latest two websites involved are University of California and StreetEasy.com.

 

The University of California (UC) is the world’s leading public research university system. Like several hundred other institutions throughout the country, including universities, government institutions and private companies, UC has been using a vendor service called Accellion File Transfer Appliance (FTA) to transfer information. Accellion was the target of an international cyberattack where the perpetrators exploited a vulnerability in Accellion’s program and attacked roughly 100 organizations. The attackers are now attempting to get money from organizations and individuals.

 

The breach origination date was March 31, 2021. Information stolen includes names, addresses, SSNs, as well as some email addresses and medical IDs.

 

StreetEasy.com is New York City’s leading local real estate marketplace on mobile and the Web, providing comprehensive listings and market data. The approximate breach size is 990,290 and originated in June of 2016. Data exposed includes passwords, first and last names, email addresses, and user IDs.

 

Be vigilant. Be strong. Stay in the know. If you have visited these websites in the past or have done business with them, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.GUARD (4827).

 

Photo credit by Erfan Parhizi via unsplash.com.

The Steps We Take to Protect Your Identity

The Steps We Take to Protect Your Identity

Identity theft is inevitable. If it hasn’t already, it will victimize you, a family member, or an employee’s life in the near future. ‘Data Harvesting’ has become a major threat to identity protection. Browsing history, online shopping, and messaging data is being used against you.

 

The statistics are overwhelming. Cyber attacks, malware, and phishing scams have increased over 1000% since Covid-19 began. There are 3.5M Google searches every minute and 4.4B Facebook messages each day … all of that information is collected, stored, and sold. Essentially, your data is being stolen then sold back to you.

 

As a leader in the identity protection space, we are advocating for laws to protect the American consumer from Data Harvesting. Additionally, of the 8.5 billion IP addresses worldwide, 3.5 billion of them are malware. It is our hope that stronger IT security efforts are implemented in America (and worldwide) to block the thieves from stealing your information.

 

Protecting identity includes five main steps:

 

1. Implementing proactive safeguards with Guard Well fraud specialists.

2. Protecting personal identifying information (PII), such as social security number, date of birth, driver’s license ID number, financial institution account numbers, passport number, IP addresses, passwords, etc. Remember that even the smallest amount of stolen PII can be used against you.

3. Browsing in incognito or private mode, deleting unused email accounts, using two-factor authentication whenever possible, changing your passwords every 60 days, and removing your information from ‘people finder’ sites.

4. Monitoring credit and identity to quickly detect theft/fraud when it occurs.

5. Resolving all theft/fraud issues completely and continuously monitoring for recurrence.

 

Finally … we always strongly recommend that you DO NOT CLICK on any online link that you are not 100% certain is safe, secure and legit.

 

For more information on how to protect your employees by providing this must-have voluntary benefit, please click on the flyer: GW_Flyer_070821_OnePageMktgPiece

 

Our team at Guard Well Identity Theft Solutions is available 24/7/365. Contact us at 888.966.GUARD (4827) or email [email protected] if you suspect fraud or have any concerns.

The Biggest Ransomware Attack Ever

The Biggest Ransomware Attack Ever

On Friday, July 2nd, an affiliate of the REvil gang (Russian-linked) infected millions of victims in at least 17 countries via the US IT software company Kayesa. Our cybersecurity team has learned that the company’s software was used to slip into victims’ systems, which they’re now holding hostage.

 

The hackers have demanded $70 million in cryptocurrency to end what is now the biggest ransomware attack on record. The attack was specifically timed for the 4th of July holiday weekend when most office workers would be out of office. As reported in The Washington Post, most of the 1,500 victimized organizations were public agencies and small businesses.

 

The ransomware attack “has temporarily shutdown hundreds of Sweden’s Coop grocery stores because the cash registers locked up. The full scope of the attack probably won’t be known for quite some time.” The Associated Press noted that “due to the potential scale of this incident, the FBI and CISA may be unable to respond to each victim individually.”

 

Unfortunately this is not REvil’s first attack. Last month, timed with the Memorial Day weekend, the group extorted $11 million from meat supplier JBS after forcing it to shut down all of its manufacturing facilities.

 

Please contact us 24/7/365 at 888.966.4827 (GUARD) if you have any concerns or suspect identity theft. Additionally, you can email [email protected]. Day or night, we’ve got your back and will always be open for you.

 

Photo by Bermix Studio on Unsplash

Stolen Data of 533 Million Facebook Users Leaked Online

Stolen Data of 533 Million Facebook Users Leaked Online

Facebook, the most popular social media platform worldwide, has experienced another leak. This weekend we learned that the phone numbers and personal data of 533 million users were published for free.

 

Business Insider reported that “the exposed data includes the personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdays, bios, and, in some cases, email addresses.”

 

For more information, click HERE.

 

Be vigilant. Be strong. If you have any concerns or think you have been a victim, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.GUARD (4827).

 

Photo credit: Tim Bennett on Unsplash

Bogus COVID Vaccine Survey

Bogus COVID Vaccine Survey

As millions of Americans are being vaccinated against COVID-19, scammers are working hard to steal their money and personal information through bogus COVID vaccination surveys. This can be confusing especially since there is a ‘v-safe’ after vaccination health checker that you are asked to download at the vaccination site after your first dose. V-safe is a legitimate app, which is a smart-phone based tool that uses text messaging and web surveys to provide personalized health check-ins after you receive a COVID-19 vaccination. Literature from v-safe says, “Through v-safe, you can quickly tell CDC if you have any side effects after getting the COVID-19 vaccine. Depending on your answers, someone from CDC may call to check on you. And v-safe will remind you to get your second vaccine dose if you need one.” For more information, visit https://vsafe.cdc.gov/en/.

 

Although v-safe is safe and legitimate, scammers have developed a new trick to steal. It doesn’t matter if the vaccine received was Pfizer, Moderna or AstraZeneca, people all across the country are being asked to complete a one-time survey in exchange for a free reward but one that requires the victim to pay shipping fees. According to the Federal Trade Commission, “No legitimate surveys ask for your credit card or bank account number to pay for a ‘free’ reward.”

 

What should you do if you receive an email or text you’re not sure about?

– In order to prevent malware that steals your personal information, don’t click on any links or open attachments.

– Don’t call or use the number in the email or text. The first thing you can do is run a search of the company that supposedly sent the message by looking up their phone number online.

– Don’t give out any bank information, credit card or other personal information to any organization that contacts you out of the blue.

– Consider adding a filter to prevent unwanted text messages on your phone by contacting your wireless provider and/or utilizing a call-blocking app.

 

Be vigilant. Be strong. If you have any concerns or think you have been a victim of a COVID vaccination scam, please contact our Member Services immediately. We are always available for you 24/7/365 at 888.966.GUARD (4827).

 

Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.com