Beware “spear-phishing” emails

Over the weekend hackers gained access to bank and retail customer email addresses when they breached security at a marketing firm named Epsilon in one of the largest security breaches ever. The theft of bank and retail customer email addresses will likely result in an increase in phishing attacks — e-mails that claim to be from a legitimate business but are designed to steal account numbers or passwords. In traditional phishing attacks, criminals send millions of e-mails that appear to be from a bank or other legitimate business, hoping that some of the recipients will be customers of that business and will respond to directions to “update your account information” and divulge account information.  “A spear-phishing e-mail is far more dangerous because it can include a person’s name and is sent only to people who are known to be customers of a certain business, greatly increasing the likelihood that the targets will be duped” according to The New York Times. Affected companies include: Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Target, Walgreens, Barclays Bank, US Bancorp, Marriott, Ritz-Carlton, L. L. Bean, Home Shopping Network, Best Buy, Walt Disney, TiVo, and the College Board.

So be ultra wary when opening your email.