Following the trail of cybersecurity woes, another major player has been hit with a data breach, leaving consumers wondering about the security of their personal information. Just as Rite Aid announced the exposure of customer information due to unauthorized access of their systems, we've learned that AT&T has also been grappling with a severe data leak. Consumers' names, addresses, and even driver's licenses from June 2017 to July 2018 at Rite Aid are out in the open, along with personal data from millions of AT&T customers, including Social Security numbers of roughly 73 million individuals that found their way onto the dark web earlier in March.
As reported, Rite Aid, which saw its last Georgia pharmacies close post-bankruptcy, confirmed that private data may still be compromised following a cyberattack that took place sometime in the yesteryears. Meanwhile, millions of AT&T customers also got the unpleasant news of a likely data theft as of April, according to a statement obtained by GPB News. This breeds an unsettling pattern of breaches involving players entrusted with incredibly sensitive data.
Standing in the midst of these digital storms, experts are throwing lifelines to consumers floundering to protect their data. Lisa Plaggemier, executive director of The National Cybersecurity Alliance, emphasizes the significant uptick in cyber incidents over the past decade, pointing at social engineering as the topmost concern in these security breaches. Addressing this continuous threat, she was quoted saying, "Bad guys have been illegally collecting private data since the Yahoo! breach in 2013," as per GPB News report.
In light of the recent breaches, Plaggemier accentuates the importance of good password hygiene. "A lot of people have this habit of thinking up a long, complex password, and they get very proud of themselves that they thought of something they can remember that's long and complex," Plaggemier told GPB News. But this pride can be short-lived as the reuse of these passwords, albeit with slight variations, often turns into a vulnerability hackers exploit using sophisticated software.
To stay a step ahead of the "bad guys," users are encouraged to take action. For starters, Rite Free and AT&T customers should be swapping their passwords, and for those who might still be clinging to their age-old iPhone passcodes, it’s high time for a change. Plaggemier also advocates for the adoption of password managers and multi-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security to personal accounts, hopefully sealing those cracks where bad habits meet bad intentions, as reported by GPB News.
