Sorry, America. You’ve already been hacked.

From money.yahoo.com (Sept. 1):

Last month, T-Mobile (TMUS), the nation’s largest wireless carrier, was hacked by a 21-year-old American living in Turkey named John Binns. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Binns said he spent about a week rummaging through the company’s servers.

T-Mobile has since confirmed the data of more than 50 million current, prospective, and former customers was stolen in the hack. That includes Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, names, addresses, and dates of birth.

The T-Mobile hack was massive, but not at all uncommon. In 2020, hackers accessed the customer data of 2.5 million customers of alcohol delivery app Drizly (UBER). In 2019, the information for 30 million payment cards used at Wawa convenience stores was stolen through a breach in the company’s payment systems. In 2018, Marriott confirmed cybercriminals stole the information of 500 million guests. And in 2017, credit monitoring bureau Equifax (EFX) was attacked, with hackers making off with the personal data of 147 million Americans.

Those are just a small sampling of hacks from the last few years. To put it bluntly, you, dear reader, have likely already been the victim of a hack.

“The answer is yes, you've been hacked,” NYU Tandon School of Engineering professor Justin Cappos told Yahoo Finance. “Your data, and everyone else's, is probably out there from one data breach or another.”

Herbert Lin, a senior research scholar at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation, went even further by saying that for a mere $10 he can buy your mother’s maiden name, your Social Security number, and your current address.

It sounds scary, and it is. But there are ways to protect yourself even if your data is already out there including taking advantage of free credit monitoring services. As for the companies that fall victim to hacks, experts say the government needs to find a way to punish them so they start doing a better job of protecting your data. [read more]

Another hacking article: FBI Confirms Hack Sent More Than 100,000 Fake Emails