A Data Breach Check Tells if Your Personal Information Has Been Stolen

“Data breach alert!” Networks attack updates–successful ones, where hackers steal customer information–are in the news all the time. The reporting is always about the number of records stolen (3 million, 15 million, 140 million) and speculation on how it happened.

Do you remember the Yahoo hack? That’s just part of a long list of successful breaches. Even the U.S. Government isn’t safe from a data breach.

In our article on hacked networks you’ll learn, “a data breach occurs when cybercriminals hack into organizations’ databases and steal sensitive information.”

Data Breaches with Troy Hunt

We look at that news differently. WhatIsMyIPAddress.com looks at how news of another network attack affects the customers of that attacked company.

We wonder how it affects you (because perhaps you’re a customer of the company) and want you to know what you should do.

There’s a reason for that: the “sensitive data” that was stolen is often information about you, including your: home address, email address, Social Security number, credit card number, date of birthday, your driver’s license number and more.

Here’s an important point to remember.

Successful network invasions happen all the time! A report of one incident should remind you that there were probably a dozen or more in the past week.

Here a few stats to back up that exact point. *

A hacking attack occurs every 39 seconds. A single computer could be under attack more regularly than once every minute.
36% of US companies have experienced a data breach within the last year. The global figure was slightly lower at 30%. Again, this could be higher due to the potential for still undetected breaches.
There were 635 breaches in the U.S. reported in 2018. There have been more than 9,000 from 2005 to 2017.

Those are eye-opening numbers and alarming, but you can’t just look at those numbers and say, “wow.”

Whenever you hear about a data breach, it should remind you—encourage you—to take action.

Here’s what you need to do when you hear of another breach:

Check ASAP if you have accounts that have been involved in the specific data breach.
If so, change the password on that account right away.
Check the account statement for any unusual transactions.

Here’s what everyone should do.

Whether or not you had an account with a company that recently suffered an attack—you should still use the free Data Breach Check tool at whatismyipaddress.com.