Capital One revealed an outside hacker accessed personal information relating to the personal information of pre-existing credit card customers as well as those who had applied for a card. The personal information of around 106 million people from the US and Canada was stolen during the hack which targeted the financial services company. The alleged hacker was arrested after reportedly boasting about the breach online. But how can you tell if you are affected by this data breach?
According to Capital One, the personal details including the names, addresses and phone numbers of more than 100 million people across the US and Canada was stolen.
The company said however that the hacker did not gain access to credit card account numbers.
But in spite of this – the data breach, which was identified on July 19, is believed to be one of the largest in banking history.
Capital One is a major credit card issuer in the US and also operates retail banks.
The banking company said the largest area of at risk date was information on consumers and small business at the time when they applied for credit card products between 2005 and early 2019.
The data included personal information the company said it collects at the time it receives card applications, such as names, addresses, zip codes, phone numbers, email addresses, dates of birth and self-reported income.
Beyond the application data, the hacker also accessed credit card date including credit scores, credit limits, balances and payment history, in addition to fragments of transactions data over 23 days during 2016, 2017 and 2018.
Overall, around 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers were compromised according to the firm.
Capital One has now issued guidance to all potential victims about how to check if your account is secure in the wake of its disclosed data breach.
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It recommendations include receiving activity alerts, reporting suspicious purchases to Capital One and keeping vigilant about possible phishing.
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The company has offered the following guidelines on how to determine if information had been accessed and to protect your account in future:
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Capital One will notify any and all affected individuals through “a variety of channels” offering free credit monitoring and identity protection to all affected.