Banks and retailers warn of giant email security breach

Epsilon Notifies Clients of Unauthorized Entry into Email System

IRVING, TEXAS – April 1, 2011 – On March 30th, an incident was detected where a subset of Epsilon clients’ customer data were exposed by an unauthorized entry into Epsilon’s email system. The information that was obtained was limited to email addresses and/or customer names only. A rigorous assessment determined that no other personal identifiable information associated with those names was at risk. A full investigation is currently underway.

Epsilon clients include major banks and retailers Capital One, Barclays Bank, U.S. Bancorp, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Best Buy Co., TiVo Inc., Walgreen Co. and Kroger Co.

The stolen emails could be used by theives to launch “physhing” scams to try to get personal information from email recipients. Always be cautious about emails from banks and other financial institutions. Check their email policies. Most banks warn that they never ask for password changes or other personal information updates via email.

What you can do

Log onto your account with any of these affected organizations and change the email address they should use for your paperless billing and various alerts. That way you will be able to distinguish valid emails from potential bogus emails in the future.

Banks and other organizations can’t protect your private information. Learn what you can do to prepare and protect yourself from the identity theft crisis now plaguing the financial system.

Learn how to keep your private information private.

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