Sri Sridharan said there’s so much of your private information for sale on the dark web that hackers have trouble selling all of it.
“Last Christmas season, they had so much information on credit cards and people, they were having a fire sale, trying to get rid of this information as a package.”
And now after the Equifax hack, there’s even more info out there.
Sridharan is director of the Florida Center of Cybersecurity at USF and said you can be effected years after the data breach.
For example, this week an ABC Action News employee got a call from someone claiming to be with Anthem insurance. The private information the person had was frightening, including a correct social security number and address.
Anthem suffered it’s data breach in early 2015.
“They will continue to peddle this information as long as they can monetize it,” said Sridharan.
Sridharan said use common sense when it comes to protecting your information.
The basic safety measures include making your passwords more complex and changing them more often. And don’t fall for internet phishing scams.
He also warns with shopping season here, stick with established businesses. And watch out for massive sales on websites you’ve never used before.
“If it’s too good to believe, don’t touch it.”
Sridharan said the cybersecurity industry is making tremendous progress in fighting the hackers and it starts with educating the public.
You can get some of that knowledge next week as his center hosts a conference October 27 at the Tampa Convention. You can get more info at http://thefc2.org/outreach/conference/index.aspx.
