Recently, I received a letter in the mail from a company about a data breach. <\/p>\n
The letter said that the company had been a victim of a cyberattack back in March in which files were scrambled (what we know as ransomware). The attacker had also accessed sensitive files and customer health data. <\/p>\n
Sadly, this is a pretty normal occurrence these days. However, this time it wasn\u2019t my own data that was stolen. It was my 9-year-old\u2019s health data, stemming from a breach at the medical company that provides her wheelchair. <\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t fill in her details to a phishing site. She didn\u2019t download malware. She doesn\u2019t even have an email account. Yet her data had already been stolen. <\/p>\n
The data included her name, date of birth, Social Security Number, medical documentation, insurance information, and more. <\/p>\n
And this isn\u2019t the first time. She\u2019d actually already had her data stolen three times before her 10th<\/sup> birthday. <\/p>\n There isn\u2019t anything we could have done differently in this situation. If you don’t use a service anymore, you can ask the organization to delete your personal information. However, in the case of medical companies\u2014who have access to your most sensitive data\u2014you can’t easily change providers, and they often need to store your data for longer for compliance reasons.<\/p>\n However, there are things you can do to prevent identity theft happening in general, some even after your kids\u2019 data has been taken in a breach like this. <\/p>\n We don’t just report on threats – we help safeguard your entire digital identit<\/strong>y<\/p>\n Cybersecurity risks should never spread beyond a headline. Protect your\u2014and your family’s\u2014personal information by using identity protection<\/a>.<\/p>\nHow to protect your kids from identity theft<\/strong> <\/h2>\n
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