COLUMBUS, Ohio—A tech worker from Seattle has been arrested and charged with a hacking breach at Capital One bank that affected 100 million people in the U.S. and is thought to be one of the largest in recent years.
That’s the bad news.
The good news: it’s not the end of the world.
But, prevention is the best way to deal with it.
Spectrum News 1's MaryLee Melendez spoke with Dave Salisbury, an expert at the University of Dayton, who offered these tips on ways people can protect themselves from being hacked in the future:
- If your information was breached, replace that account information with a different numbered account
- Be certain that your user IDs and passwords are strong and unique on each important account
- Be cautious about giving out information that isn’t required and make sure those asking for it are reputable
- Check the credit bureaus, or some of the free services, such as Credit.com, CreditKarma.com and CreditSesame.com, to track your reports
- Freeze/lock accounts as available
- Consider purchasing one of the identity theft services, like Lifelock or IdentityGuard
Salisbury says people need to understand that their data exists in a congested environment and bad people are always trying to find ways into systems.
"Sometimes they win, though when you think of the magnitude of stuff that's online, it's somewhat impressive that this doesn't happen a little more often," said Salisbury.
