Data Breaches: How to Safeguard Yourself from One

As more and more data are stored digitally, data breaches become a more common thing – and a serious threat to the rest of your life. When your personal details get exposed, you risk losing control over your email address, your personal accounts – including bank accounts with an internet banking facility – and many more.

There is no shortage of security measures designed to prevent data leaks and breaches from happening, but even the best security measures can still be bypassed. Multiple studies have shown that human error is also still a persistent cause of data breaches, which means you are never fully protected, despite having multiple security measures in place.

Using proxy providers is a great way to protect yourself, and you can find more information about that here. Before we talk further about how you can protect yourself better against data breaches, it is a good idea to look into cases that have happened in the past and some lessons that we can derive from them. Let’s take a closer look.

The Equifax Leak

One of the most serious data breaches involved Equifax, one of the major US credit bureaus. It is easy to imagine just how sensitive the leaked data was, as Equifax processes credit information and financial details, and then issues credit scores for consumers in the United States.

The breach affected more than 140 million users directly tied to the company. The way Equifax handled the data breach was also far from ideal. The company remained silent before eventually admitting that there had been a breach. By that time, bundles of Equifax consumer data were circulating in hacker forums and on the dark web.

Equifax also failed to incorporate sufficient security measures to prevent the breach; this fact was discovered after months of investigation into the attack. Sensitive details such as social security numbers were stored as plain text, leaving them exposed to security risks. The attackers didn’t have to jump through hoops to decode the data that they had stolen.

The Equifax leak was one of the biggest data breach cases of all time. The case didn’t just affect Equifax accounts, but also the accounts of Equifax users on other platforms. The only remedy for victims was the protection against fraud that Equifax later introduced as a result of the data breach.

Capital One Fell Victim to Leaks

A further massive data breach that led to a major leak of personal information involved Capital One, another major financial institution. This time, more than 100 million sets of customer data, which included credit scores, account balances, payments, dates of birth, and email addresses, were leaked and sold through online forums.

The Capital One case was a particularly bad one because it happened after the Equifax breach. The company should have plenty of time to strengthen their security, but they failed to take the necessary steps to protect their customers. There were even 140,000 social security numbers leaked by the same group of attackers.

This too was a breach that could not be solved from the customers’ side. While Capital One insisted that there were no fraud cases that came from the leaked personal information, reports have shown that customers are being affected even today. The unauthorized use of credit cards and similar fraudulent activity is happening because of the data leak.

The two cases are clear signs of how important it is to protect yourself. They are also a testament to how even the largest corporations can be victims of cyberattacks, and how those cyberattacks could lead to your own personal information being exposed. Fortunately, there are several things that you can do to better safeguard yourself.

Steps to Better Data Protection

Most cases of data breaches or data leaks cannot be identified until the company (the victim) opens up about the breach. Working with only reputable organizations is a way to minimize the risk of exposure. You want to make sure that banks, credit card companies, and other entities whose services you use follow strict information security standards.

There are also ways to identify if your passwords or personal information have been leaked to forums, the dark web, and other malicious sites. Haveibeenpwned is a good place to start. The site allows you to check if your email address or other personal details have been tied to a particular data breach. It also warns you when a new case pops up.

At the same time, you can prevent websites from tracking your activities online by using a reliable proxy service. At the very least, a trustworthy proxy service lets you remain anonymous when using free web services, reducing the risk of being profiled by advertisers or sharing unnecessary details about your device and browsing history to attackers.

Last but not least, demand companies whose services you use regularly take more steps in ensuring your privacy. It is up to you the customer to make stricter security standards mandatory and implemented properly.