Capital One revealed a huge data breach on Monday. According to the bank holding company, the breach included personal information of more than 100 million people that ranged from Social Security numbers to bank account numbers and names. If you had applied for a Capital One credit card from 2005 through early 2019, there is a high chance that you have been affected by the data breach.
Capital One has said that the breach ‘affected approximately 100 million individuals in the United States and approximately 6 million in Canada.’ It further added that the primary information involved in the hack was from ‘consumers and small businesses as of the time they applied for one of our credit card products from 2005 through early 2019.’ As to the information that was taken during these instanced, Capital One said, ‘Names, addresses, zip codes/postal codes, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth, and self-reported income.’
Capital One has also said that a total of about 140,000 Social Security numbers from credit-card customers were taken as well as ‘about 80,000 linked bank account numbers’ from credit-card customers who were secured and about 1 million Social Insurance Numbers from Canadian credit-card customers.
To make a long story short; it is a huge mess. You can wait for Capital One to tell you if you have been affected. Capital One has said on Monday that it would ‘notify affected individuals through a variety of channels.’ The company is also offering ‘free credit monitoring and identity protection available to everyone affected.’ It is being suggested that such a data breach can be used for identity theft. This means that you should think about freezing your credit until all of this has been sorted out.
You should be on your toes and must monitor your credit-card bill and notify about any potential fraudulent activity to Capital One. You should also consider procuring a service that imparts protection against identity theft. Here’s to hoping that this mess gets sorted out soon enough!
