Information on Data Breach
Data breaches happen all the time. 2019 seems to have been a year for data breaches, with many going on during the summer months, including the start of fall in September. Quite a few doctor’s offices were hit, along with various other businesses. However, one place that many people use for its hotels, MGM Resorts International, happens to be one of the places that was hit. The incident happened when a hacker broke into their computer network system around July 7th of this year.
After this happened, MGM investigated and found that no financial records were stolen, however their customer’s first and last names along with their driver’s license numbers were part of the compromised data. User information such as passwords were safe as well. Because of the incident, MGM contacted those affected and offered them free credit monitoring along with data theft recovery services.
Even though all data breaches are bad, this one did not seem as horrible as some others that have happened. Someone hacking a database happens all the time during these kinds of breaches, but what would happen if a company leaked your information by accident?
Yes, data breaches include when companies accidently leak private, personally identifiable information about you. This includes what happened with UNICEF, which is the United Nations children’s agency. Agora, their online learning platform, had its user’s information leaked on August 26th this year. 20,000 users were emailed a spreadsheet full of 8,253 people’s personal information by accident. These people, enrolled in a course about childhood immunization, had their names, gender, email addresses, organization, duty stations, contract type, and supervisor’s name leaked by a staff member that ran a report which led to the emails being sent out.
This type of situation makes it feel like nobody is safe anymore. And that may as well be true, it is hard to use a business or service that has not had a data breach in its lifetime. Everybody is a target, as is everybody’s personal information. Even if it is not online, once a data breach occurs, that information can end up on the internet later.
UNICEF apologized in an email to its users and asked those that received the email with the personal information to remove it right away from their systems. But what if someone did not remove it? Does that mean these people’s information that was leaked is now out there on someone’s hard drive or in their email?
It is entirely possible, when a leak occurs, that the leaked information does not get removed from wherever it was leaked to. This can be a scary thought for those that value their privacy. Even if there was no malicious intent when the personal information got leaked, that information is now out there and can end up being used for malicious reasons.
It is safe to say, you really are not safe anywhere online. So, what can you do? Data breaches are imminent, regardless of the company. Every business is susceptible to them, and it can happen to anyone. Well, there are a few steps you can take.
- Remove your personal data from the internet.
- Delete your online accounts.
- Do not bank online.
- Stay off social media.
- Check the company’s privacy policies before signing up to their website or services.
- Change your passwords constantly.
- Never use the same password for multiple accounts.
These steps can help to some degree, but how do you remove your personal information off the internet? That may seem like a daunting task, and it may very well be one. That is where Wiperts.com comes in. Wiperts gets the information from you that you want removed from the internet, and then removes it for you! They go to each website that they find your information on and take steps to remove it. If you want some websites to retain your data, all you have to do is let Wiperts know which ones and they will not touch that information.
This is really simple for you too. All you do is request removal, Wiperts does the hard work to remove your data, and then continues to monitor your data and remove it if needed. This is great for those that do not want the hassle of removing their data themselves and do not want to constantly check for their data being used online. Because who seriously has time to do that? Wiperts does, but surely you do not. Save time and money by having these experts help protect your data online.
Unfortunately, when you share anything online, it can remain there for a long time even after you try to remove it. Social media is known for keeping your data even after you delete, as well as search websites too. A lot of places state in their privacy policy how easy or difficult it would be to get your data removed, whether you do it yourself, or you have a company like Wiperts do it for you.
Even after deleting, a lot of places retain certain information from you for x amount of years. The best way to avoid this is to stay off the internet, of course. But these days that is nearly impossible for some. Work, school, even play can lead you to the internet. You need accounts for nearly every website you visit to get the full experience of it, and every time you sign up for a new account, your data is being shared again. Wiperts can help delete these accounts and your data for you at your request.
Also, data breaches happen with online businesses and off the internet in real life. Businesses can be hacked or have accidental leaks online and offline that cause your personal information to be shared with the world. Some of this is not too bad, depending on what gets leaked. But most of the time, these breaches can be very dangerous. Why not get someone to monitor your data for you, so they can remove it before it spread online? Check out Wiperts today and get peace of mind.
