Email Breach Warning From Banks And Credit Card Issuers

You always hear things beware of email scams. This is one that you really need to pay attention to. There have been reports of thefts of millions of email addresses, from an advertising company, that’s behind some big names, that you may have recently dealt with.

In a story from AP, many large companies have begun to warn customers that they can expect fraudulent emails that will be trying to coax them for account login information. Several of the companies learned that over the weekend, that hackers may have learned their email addresses due to a security breach at Epsilon, a Dallas-based company that manages email communications.

These data breaches, called “phishing” is a more sophisticated type of “phishing” attack, because it’s allowing the fraudsters to actually target people who have an account with the bank. Some of these very reputable companies and banks that are affected are U.S. Bancorp, Ameriprise Financial Inc., Capital One Financial Corp., Barclays Bank, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Citigroup Inc. The retailers included are Walgreen Co., Best Buy Co., Kroger Co and TiVo Inc.

This recent breach is following  another major hacking attack in recent weeks. According to the chairman and founder of the non-profit Anti-Phishing Working Group, David Jevans, he said that "You're not going to see typical phishing where 90 percent of it ends up in spam traps and is easily detected. This is going to be highly targeted.” If you get the email, do not open it.

If you think that you may have been targeted by this breach, and received an email, immediately contact the company or financial institution that you dealt with, and you can always contact The Better Business Bureau. If you were scammed, what did you do, and what advice can you pass on to others?