Massive Capital One Breach

The Capital One Breach: What It Means for You –Wall Street Journal
“In this latest massive consumer-data breach, a hacker accessed the personal information of 100 million Capital One credit-card customers and applicants in the U.S. and six million in Canada. The breach stands to be one of the worst for U.S. consumers because of the type of financial information that was accessed. This valuable consumer financial information can be used to figure out the identities of the most creditworthy or affluent consumers and open a card or loans in their names. Here’s what you need to know if you have a Capital One credit card or have applied for one in the past, and how to protect your accounts and information. Sensitive identity information about consumers and small businesses who applied for Capital One credit cards between 2005 and 2019 was exposed. So if you have a Capital One credit card, or have applied for one in that time frame, your information is part of this data breach. The information leaked includes names, addresses, ZIP Codes, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and self-reported income, the bank said. Consumer data including credit scores, credit limits, balances, payment history and some transaction data are also part of the breach. Also exposed were about 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers….There are three things those who either have a Capital One credit card or applied for one should do immediately. First, freeze your credit….Then, change your passwords….After that, set up two-factor authentication for all your financial profiles and online accounts.”