Serious risk facing Equifax breach victims from scammers and fraudsters!

There is a wealth of information already out there in the public domain about most people. From loads of information accessible by anyone on social media platforms, to the data we share with organisations who may then be passing it around (whether we’re aware or not), there is so much out there.

So, when we have a serious data protection breach like the Equifax hack, the risk for victims is massive. It’s not hard for scammers and fraudsters to be able to find more information online about the Equifax breach victims, meaning the risks are very hard to manage.

Here’s an example: your data has been breached from the Equifax hack, so now they have your name, email address, a password and a partial banking card number. Now, let’s say the scammer looks into your background… He/she searches for you using the email address they have and they find your Facebook profile that contains more information about you.

They look through your profile and find your mother is listed as a family relation on your profile, with one click they’re now on your mother’s profile. They notice your mother has her maiden name in brackets on her profile, which is very common. What’s also common is the security question that asks for your mother’s maiden name, which the scammer now has.

They keep looking through your profile and they see you have a dog named Jeremy. They see some comments from some siblings there reminiscing about another dog named Lilly from childhood times, which could feasibly be your first pet… Another common security question is the name of your first pet and now they have the answer to that one too.

They keep looking and see there are several groups and pages you like, from gaming consoles to schools. It wouldn’t be hard to then know yet another key piece of information about you – your first school, and therefore likely your place of birth too – as well as the fact you appear to like online gaming, and may therefore have an online gaming profile.

I could go on, but the point is that, where there is a will there is a way. And this is why victims of data protection breaches, like the Equifax cyber-hack, are at more risk from scammers and fraudsters than people may perceive.

What can victims of the Equifax breach do?

There’s all the usual stuff like changing passwords etc., but when personal information is breached, as well as financial information, it can be put up for sale on the dark web and combined with data stolen from other hacks.

Just this month we saw the Travelex data breach and the Trusted Quid data breach, so it wouldn’t take a genius to match names and email addresses from several breaches to build one heck of an in-depth profile about you.

The risks are real…

Identity theft, financial fraud, online and email scams, telephone scams etc. This is why we think it’s important for people to know their rights when it comes to data breach compensation claims.

Victims of a data breach like the Equifax hack can be eligible to make a claim for any distress and financial fraud they are a victim of.

We are representing a large pool of claimants for the Equifax breach, as well as or a number of other cyber hacks and data leaks / data breaches.

Victims have the right to redress, and we are here to help.

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