Over the weekend, third-party permission email marketer, Epsilon was the victim of a breach of their email databases. An unknown number of email addresses and customer names were harvested by unseemly individuals.
“Ummmm, what’s Epsilon and why do I care?” you may ask. Well, according to SecurityWeek, “Epsilon sends over 40 billion emails annually and counts over 2,500 clients, including 7 of the Fortune 10 to build and host their customer databases.”
Uh-oh. This could be bad.
Here’s a short sampling of whose email lists were affected as verified by SecurityWeek:
• Kroger • TiVo
• US Bank
• JPMorgan Chase
• Capital One
• Citi
• Home Shopping Network (HSN)(added 4/3 @10:22am)
• Ameriprise Financial
• LL Bean Visa Card
• McKinsey & Company • Ritz-Carlton Rewards
• Marriott Rewards
• New York & Company
• Brookstone
• Walgreens (Again!)
• The College Board (added 4/3 @8:20am)
• Disney Destinations
Yeah, I’d say it’s a pretty significant list of emails that these hackers have gotten ahold of. (Also, The College Board? That would be all sorts off messed up if these people preyed on kids on the SAT mailing list.)
The good news is that only email addresses and possibly names were harvested, which means the worst these villains can do is bother you with email spam and phishing requests. However, it does let these people be extra sneaky with the way the craft their nefarious fake emails since they know exactly who they are targeting now.
We realize that this is probably not the news you were looking for this Monday morning as you start the work week, but please stay aware of as you plow through your inbox. Make sure your emails are from who they say they are and try not to click on links willy-nilly. Just be extra careful in interacting with emails and you’ll be fine.
