2014-09-28

Latest news reports, Home Depot has admitted that a few weeks age its payment system suffered network attacks, after IT security team investigation, this hacker attack might earliest begin from April of this year, and informed of the of this long time existence hacker theft incident until to September 2. And nearly 56 million leaked credit card users information might be exposed to danger.

More details about their recent leak incidents are provided In Home Depot's statement. At the same time they declare that they have removed malicious software implanted by attackers from the system. Damage caused by this incident is seemingly greater than imagined: it leaked payment information of 56 million customers from U.S. and Canada. However, exactly what data and information were leaked had not been confirmed.

If you are the potential victim of this incident or you worry about your credit card security, please take a look at the following tips:

Check suspicious behaviors in your account

First you should check your credit card and debit card use records in the period the incident happened. If you find any abnormal transaction behaviors, immediately notify the issuing bank. You should know that criminals won't use or sell all stolen data (in order not to saturate the market, they need several months to sell the data). You need to observe your accounts for some time.

Apply for replacement of debit/credit card

If you don't want to wait for criminals to sell your personal data, especially when your card is debit card that can directly withdraw money from bank, you need to apply for card replacement. But you must keep in mind that if any automatic payment account cites this card, you need to update the information.

U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) provides the public with many processing recommendations concerning handling lost and stolen card.

Choose a more complex debit card PIN code

If you are using debit card, you need to change your PIN. Even you can't be sure whether criminals steal the information, many ordinary people still use weak Pin that's easy to guess. Changing PIN is a small step, but it's a big step for personal data security improvement.

Check your credit report

Criminals may combine stolen data with other data to cause greater damage. Checking your credit report regularly is a good idea, during which you need to identify and report any fraudulent transaction.

Change your Home Depot password

While there is no sign indicating that Home Depot is destroyed, this incident reminds us of the need to use complex password, and frequently to change it.

Apart from the credit card information, people should pay attention to security of other private information including phone number, family address and other information, in case that hacker combine the information with credit card information to cause greater loss. Parents also need to teach children about this knowledge or utilize a keylogger tool or Mac keylogger tool to record kids' activities, so parents can be informed if children carelessly leak private or family information.

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Finance

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