Video: Protect Your Identity After the NPD Data Breach

hacker group usdd stole billions of users personal data leaving many of us at risk for identity theft but is there anything you can do to protect yourself find out in today's video what's up everybody welcome back to ecurity Planet I'm your host Davin Jackson today we're going to be talking about the US dood attack on national public data and how you can check to see if you are affected as well as sharing some tips on how you can protect yourself back in April a hacker group known as usdd claimed that they had successfully hacked national public data an organization that offers background checks us DOD stole sensitive data from over 3 billion people making this one of the largest data breaches in recent history The Stolen data includes names birth dates home addresses email addresses and even Social Security numbers basically everything a malicious actor needs to impersonate you take over your accounts or even create new ones in your name this puts all the individuals affected at risk for identity theft and their data could be used for unauthorized transactions such as applying for credit cards purchasing cars or even taking out large loans according to a statement from national public data a third party bad actor stole the data and then leaked the information on the dark web since the breach was reported the person behind it has been arrested and this was after they leaked crowd strike's internal data crri conducted an investigation that led them to identifying a man from Brazil as the main culprit additionally a class action lawsuit has been proposed and the United States House of Representatives committee has opened an investigation however neither of these things will immediately help the 3 billion people that are affected and with the holidays quickly approaching the threat of our data being used for fraudulent purchases is higher than ever before potentially resulting in millions if not billions of dollars being stolen that's why we're here to help with some tips that you can do right now to protect yourself before we get started please like this video sub subscribe to the ecurity Planet channel and hit the Bell so you can be notified when we post new content now let's go ahead and jump into our list first you want to check to see if your data has been affected and with a number like 3 billion I think it's safe to assume that your data is included in this breach and therefore you should be following this list anyway but if you need to be certain you can go to websites like www.md breach.com or www. mp. pentester decom to check if you've been compromised when using these sites you can put your name and the database will be searched for any related information now you can also provide additional details like your social security number but I don't recommend sharing such sensitive information even on trusted websites I mean isn't that how we got into this mess in the first place Additionally you can go to have iin pone.com and they can help you identify if your email address has been exposed in any data breaches if your information does show up in any of these results change your passwords immediately speaking of passwords number two use strong passwords and make sure you're not reusing them across different websites if you need help creating strong passwords for all of your accounts invest in a password manager like one password last pass Bit Defender or dash lane also make sure you're enabling multiactor authentication on all of your accounts this will give you an added layer of protection just in case someone does get your password and logs into your account next please be careful about what information you share online especially with social media you know that first day of school picture where your child's holding up the sign with their name their grade and the name of their school or how about that video re or Tik Tok about your recent date at a fancy restaurant or even posting the location of your hotel while you're currently on vacation to you that poster video may be fun or Innocent but it also might be giving out a lot more information than what you originally intended you see that post May reveal information that malicious actors can use to Target you in their attacks as an ethical hacker I'm always looking for that extra piece of information that I can use to legitimize my fishing attempts or social engineering campaigns and malicious actors are no different always be mindful of what you're posting and also turn off Geo tagging so you aren't revealing the location in your social media posts if you are going to share this sensitive information share it with a close friends group or even from a private page with people that you've accepted so you know who they are next never trust always verify by now I'm sure that we've seen or received some kind of fishing email and and usually you can tell that it's a fishing email because something might be a little off maybe it has several misspellings and grammatical errors or maybe it was sent from some random email address that doesn't match the message in the body of the email well now that the attackers have more accurate information and with the help of tools like artificial intelligence it's highly probable that they're going to be able to craft better emails and fool their victims so a rule of thumb that I follow is to not click any links or attachments in any email or text messages without verifying The Source first what that means is that you follow up and verify with the source or the person who sent that text or email message before you ever click anything even if it's an emergency message from your loved ones you call them don't email or text them you call them first and then verify that they sent that link or attachment before you click it if you get an email with a telephone number that they want you to call don't call that number and that's because attackers will use telephone numbers that look like the real number but then they may have a couple numbers that are mixed up so you won't know the difference instead go online and find the company's official website and then call that number that they have listed by calling the number on the official website you know that you're speaking to the real company and not a scammer trying to fool you look I know it might be a little inconvenient but it's better to be safe than sorry next monitor your credit report for any suspicious activity thanks to this data breach attackers now have everything they need to create new credit accounts and make large purchases in your name so so it's important that you're actively monitoring your finances and your credit reports and also freezing your credit if you think something may be suspicious a credit freeze blocks any potential creditors from viewing or pulling your credit file this will also stop any attackers from opening any new lines of credit in your name and lowering or ruining your credit score in the process your credit report will remain Frozen until you ultimately unfreeze it and allow new inquiries to be processed to file a freeze consumers must contact each of the three major credit bureaus online by phone or by email lastly contact your cell phone provider and add account protection to defend against Sim swapping attacks in the past few years we've heard about several attacks on T-Mobile Instagram random celebrities or just regular people losing access to their phones social media accounts and thousands of dollars stolen from their bank or cryptocurrency accounts this is because of an attack known as Sim swapping SIM swapping involves attackers using information that they've gathered on their victims and then deceiving cell phone providers into thinking that they are the account holder to gain access to the Mobile accounts once they have access the attacker requests a new SIM card that they use with their own mobile device to gain access to all the apps and accounts belonging to the victim all while locking out the original user and disabling their phone rendering both of them useless to protect yourself from SIM swapping attacks contact your mobile provider and request to enable security measures like T-Mobile's account takeover protection or Verizon's Port freezing and enhanced authentication feature and that's it for today's video thanks for watching for more tips check out our article on the ecurity planet website and subscribe to our cyber security inside our newsletter this way you can get all the top Cyber News Trends and Analysis sent directly to your inbox multiple times a week I'll see you in the next video and like always stay informed stay secure and stay safe

This transcript was generated automatically from the video's captions and may contain errors.