NOTICE PUT OUT BY FBI: Public Service Announcement Prepared by the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) August 15, 2014 The FBI Investigates Potential Compromise of 1.2 Billion Credentials On August 5, 2014, multiple media outlets reported information from a cyber security company stating a cyber criminal network compromised approximately 1.2 billion online credentials. The FBI initiated an investigation and is working with the U.S. Intelligence Community, law enforcement partners, and private sector partners to learn more about this compromise and to identify the perpetrators. Additional information will be provided as appropriate once the information is compiled, the threat and vulnerability are assessed, and potential victims are identified. This information exemplifies the ongoing and increasing threat that cyber crime poses to the United States and citizens across the globe. Cyber criminals regularly target various online credentials to further criminal schemes or to sell on the black market for other criminals to use. Within the past year, media outlets have reported large scale data breaches at various retailers to include Target and Supervalu, resulting in criminals gaining access to credit card and other personal information for their own malicious use. Criminals can use online credentials and other pieces of personal identifying information to further a variety of criminal schemes, including identity theft. The FBI urges the public to remain cautious and conduct necessary precautions to protect themselves online from any potential fraud due to this potential compromise or others. The Federal Trade Commission recommends that individuals believing they are victims of identity theft should take steps to protect their personal identifying information online to include changing previous passwords and using different passwords for each Web site used. Additional steps to protect against identity theft include: Be aware of your security settings on your home computers and wireless networks. Limit your personal postings on media sites and carefully consider comments. Routinely update hardware and software applications, including antivirus. Pay close attention to all work and personal emails, especially those containing attachments or links to other Web sites. These suspicious or phishing emails may contain infected attachments or links. Routinely conduct online searches of your name to identify what public information is already available. Enable additional email security measures to include two-factor authentication on your personal email accounts. This is a security feature offered by email providers including Gmail, MSN, and Yahoo mail. The feature will cause a text message be sent to your mobile device prior to accessing your email account. Closely monitor your credit and banking activity and consider registering for a credit freeze with the main credit bureaus. Be very aware of pretext or suspicious phone calls or emails from people trying socially engineer information from you. Social engineering is a skill often used to trick you into divulging confidential information and continues to be an extremely effective method for criminals. If you believe you have been victimized in a data breach, please contact your financial institution, your local law enforcement agency or local FBI field office, file a complaint with complaint with the IC3 at IC3.gov, and contact credit-reporting bureaus. Additionally, businesses can access infragard.org to learn about public/private sector information sharing and various resources to assist in net defense.
Posted on: Wed, 03 Sep 2014 18:10:54 +0000
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