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Again, another data breach!

I know it's just FaceBook, as awful (who in the hell programmed that mess) as it is, but for those of you who do banking etc online, you must check your accounts several times a week. And have alerts set up. For example, I went shopping at Costco today and by the time I got home, I had an email on my phone alerting me that my card had been used and for how much. Very cool. 

 If your bank or financial institution doesn't provide this service, change banks. (I use Chase for most of my day-to-day transactions and Schwab for investing). My credit union also sends me fraud alerts on that account via text (Navy Federal Credit Union). Protect yourself. And check your credit reports every month. Chase allows me to do this for free. (I've frozen my credit accounts so no one can use them to create new accounts.) 

More details on the FaceBook breach from Experian:
  • Facebook announced a data breach on Friday, Sept. 28, in which the personal information of 50 million user accounts was put at risk due to a vulnerability in the social network’s code.
  • Hackers gained the ability to steal “access tokens” that allow users to stay logged into their accounts. Fraudsters could use these to not only take over users’ Facebook profiles, but also to access third-party accounts like Airbnb, Spotify or Uber that use Facebook credentials to log in.
  • Though the access tokens targeted in the attack could potentially be used to log into third-party sites, Facebook announced on Oct. 2 that its investigators don’t believe such third-party sites were affected.
  • Since discovering the breach, Facebook has fixed the vulnerability, informed law enforcement to investigate and reset the access tokens on 90 million accounts as a precautionary measure.
  • See this article for more information.
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