The Breach

If you haven't already heard, Epsilon was breached over the past week and hundreds of thousands of emails were obtained by outside sources. Whats Epsilon? Epsilon is a company that offers outsourced services to help companies gain customers. It offers e-mail marketing services and management of customer email databases for clients. It also monitors social networking and other similar sites to see what people have to say about companies. It uses this information to give advice on markets to target, and to help maintain customer loyalty. It also offers Abacus, "the world's largest cooperative database with over 8.6 billion consumer transactions and 4.8 billion business transactions."

A picture of the epsilon email network web page.

 

How can you tell if you were affected? Well right now the best way to find out is through the companies that use Epsilon. There is a list going around of companies that have been identified as using Epsilon, possibly with your emails. They are following stores: 

 

Target, Kroger, TiVo, US Bank, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, Citi, Home Shopping Network, Ameriprise Financial, LL Bean Visa Card, McKinsey & Company, Ritz-Carlton Rewards, Marriott Rewards, New York & Company, Brookstone, Walgreens, The College Board, Disney Destinations, and Best Buy.

If you were affected and it is a possibility that your email was obtained by outside sources, you will have received an email from one of these companies. Now you are probably wondering what will happen if it was obtained? Well not to worry, they didn't steal your password, just your email address. Chances are people will be subjected to much more spam and phishing emails now. What these types of attacks do is to prompt a user for a username and password to sites you think you are a member of, but then maintain the data for themselves. At that point they will have your password. The best solution to these emails is to not open them in general. Only open emails from people you know. As always, stay safe.