How vulnerable has Epsilon made you?

If you are anything like me you are receiving email after email from companies with whom you normally deal with except now they are saying that their security has been compromised and to watch out for emails that are phishing for your information. I don't know but it doesn't seem to promising when I'm getting emails from my bank, saying their system was hacked into by an unknown source and to be careful if I receive suspicious emails. That is the last email I want to get from my bank.

As you probably know Epsilon, who is the worlds largest "permission" based email marketing company was hacked into. This unknown source had access to millions of email address and names spanning from banks to Target to many other companies. With access to all of this, this unknown source sends out a more advanced version of spam emails because this source now knows more information about you. These emails look real and are asking for passwords or bank account numbers, or really anything so that they can get money out of you.

I think it is ridiculous that in todays day and age some of the largest companies are still not fully protecting themselves and their customers and because of that they are increasingly vulnerable to hacking attempts that can cost them and their customers millions of dollars. What is it going to take before companies begin to realize that they are compromising their companies name, trustworthiness and reputation by simply being to cheap to protect themselves?

According to many reports over 2,500 companies information was part of this recent hacking "attack" of Epsilon. Epsilon said that the hackers only got roughly 2% of all of the information that they store and have access to. The problem with that is that 2% of all of their information is still millions of people.

So what can you do to avoid being lured into one of these scams? First and foremost the easiest way to avoid having to deal with these fraudulent emails is to delete any email that seems the least bit suspicious. Also make sure that you do not give any information to these scam emails. All of the companies that have been affected by the hacking "attack" are saying that if you receive an email that seems suspicious do not be afraid to call the companies hotline asking if that email is legitimate.

Hopefully soon companies will learn to protect themselves and their clients before it costs everyone millions of dollars more. For more information about the Epsilon incident and why it is more likely for you to be part of these "phishing"attacks on your smart phone, check out the New York Times article by Amy Gahran.