• Blog
  • Services
    • PHIshMD Ongoing Training
    • HIPAA Compliance
    • Discover Vulnerabilities to Patient PHI
  • Store
    • HIPAA Secure Now Service Store
  • Contact Us
    • Sales Inquiry
    • Customer Support
  • Resources
    • Free Healthcare Security Check Up Quiz
    • HIPAA Compliance Requirements | A Guide
    • Webinars & Downloadable Content
    • Use our free Breach Cost Calculator
    • HIPAA Secured Seal
    • In-Email Training & Analysis | Catch Phish

Call us at: 877-275-4545

Client or Partner? Login here
HIPAA Secure Now!HIPAA Secure Now!
  • Blog
  • Services
    • PHIshMD Ongoing Training
    • HIPAA Compliance
    • Discover Vulnerabilities to Patient PHI
  • Store
    • HIPAA Secure Now Service Store
  • Contact Us
    • Sales Inquiry
    • Customer Support
  • Resources
    • Free Healthcare Security Check Up Quiz
    • HIPAA Compliance Requirements | A Guide
    • Webinars & Downloadable Content
    • Use our free Breach Cost Calculator
    • HIPAA Secured Seal
    • In-Email Training & Analysis | Catch Phish

Exactis Database Leaks 340 Million Records of Personal Data

July 16, 2018 Posted by Art Gross HIPAA No Comments

There is a good chance you’ve never heard of the major marketing and data aggregation company Exactis, but that doesn’t mean they don’t know you. In fact, Exactis may know a great deal of your personal information, including your email address, your home address, your habits and hobbies, your children’s ages and genders if you have any, and more. Even more alarming, if Exactis does have that information, so too may a hacker who discovered it leaked publicly on the internet. Marketwatch explores the breach and what it means for nearly every American involved.

Security researcher Vinny Troia discovered the breach in June, alleging that Exactis leaked the data of nearly 340 million individuals by storing the records on a publicly accessible server. According to Wired, nearly two terabytes of data have been exposed in the alleged breach.

On Friday, a class action lawsuit was filed against Exactis by national law firm Morgan & Morgan. The lawsuit sets out to help individuals whose data was exposed in the breach by recovering monetary damages and other relief.

Exactis has not yet responded to the breach allegations leaving many questions unanswered. At this time, it is uncertain if the exposed data was accessed by hackers. According to Troia’s findings, gaining access to the data would have been a simple task. An exact number of affected individuals has yet to be determined.

Who is Exactis?

Exactis is a privately held Palm Coast, Fl based company with additional corporate offices in California and New York. The company was founded in 2015 and is a leader in compiling and aggregating both business and consumer data and stores approximately 3.5 billion records, which are updated monthly.

With data collection records in the billions, you may expect Exactis to have a large staff, however, according to the company’s LinkedIn profile they have just 10 employees.

How does Exactis have my information?

Exactis gets information on users through cookies, small packets of data sent out by a website when a user visits it and stored in that user’s data, according to Mark Weinstein, privacy expert and founder of social media site MeWe.”

Cookies are used to track a user’s movement on a website and are used to paint a better picture of a user’s browsing habits. Cookies can also sync together to communicate your data, which for example, may allow something you were viewing on your smartphone to appear in an ad on a social media site.

What does the Exactis breach mean for me?

Although there is no proof that any hackers maliciously accessed the information exposed by Exactis, the possibility certainly exists, and precautions should be taken by consumers. While no social security numbers or credit card information is believed to have been exposed by the breach, the magnitude and detail of personal information left uncovered could allow cybercriminals easy access to valuable information.

Hackers often spend a great deal of time learning about an individual’s life and interests to create the perfect scam through a social engineering attack.  The information exposed by the Exactis database contains a wide variety of a user’s browsing history, making it simple for a hacker to construct seemingly legitimate scams without having to put in any real work.

  • Phishing Scams – In a phishing scam, cybercriminals send an email that appears to be from a legitimate source requesting you to provide sensitive information. Typically, the email contains a malicious link that when clicked, takes the victim to a fake website where their information is tracked and stolen by the criminal.

With the information exposed in the Exactis breach, the cybercriminal no longer needs to do much research to find the best and easiest way to trick you. Using your exposed information, criminals can create spear-phishing attacks that appear to come from a recipient you might expect to hear from based on your online browsing habits.

  • Social Media Scams – Using your likes and interests, cybercriminals can also create various forms of social media scams to trick you into giving up more information, including your credit card information, your social security number, and more. Cybercriminals will often create fake profiles depicting a person you might perceive as trustworthy with the same interests and potentially affiliations as you. By getting you to accept them as their friend on social media, they can further gather information about you, potentially to use in a phishing or other scam attempt.

Social media ad scams and malicious links in timeline posts are also common forms of attack by cybercriminals. Using your browsing habits, criminals can create fake ad campaigns that look real to trick you into purchasing what you may believe to be goods or services that you were recently searching for. By clicking on a fake ad or link with malicious intent, you will further open the door for a hacker to steal your information.

  • Phone Scams – Potentially the oldest scam in the book but one that is still commonly used today is a phone scam. Phone scams can take many shapes ranging from a person calling to tell you you’ve won a giveaway, to a person calling claiming to be a friend or grandchild in trouble and in need of money. While phone scams can be broad and have no specific information on you besides your phone number, criminals who do have some background on your interests can target you in a much more direct and convincing way.

Precautions you can take following the Exactis breach

Since there is a good chance your personal information may have been exposed by Exactis, below are some precautions you can take to help you protect yourself.

      • Monitor your social media accounts
      • Monitor your bank accounts
      • Monitor your credit report
      • Be on high-alert for stolen funds
      • If you are a victim of identity theft, create an identity theft report with the Federal Trade Commission
      • Place fraud alert or a security freeze on your credit
      • File tax returns as early as possible
      • Contact the Social Security Administration for a copy of your wage-earning report to verify no fraudulent activity has occurred using your Social Security number
      • Contact your health insurance provider to ensure no fraudulent medical claims have been filed

How to Reduce Tracking

Use privacy plug-ins to reduce the amount of data that is being collected on you when browsing the web. Privacy plug-ins such as “Privacy Badger” do not allow consumers to be tracked without their permission and are a great way to ensure the sharing of your information is controlled by you.

You can also check your browser “settings” for a “Do Not Track” request feature that can be used with browsing traffic.

Tags: BreachDark WebPhishing
No Comments
Share
0

You also might be interested in

Fear and destroy USB drives!

Fear and destroy USB drives!

Apr 8, 2011

In what appears to be a reoccurring story, another hospital[...]

Dropbox is not HIPAA compliant

Apr 29, 2011

An article over at KevinMD.com on using Dropbox to store[...]

5 easy steps to protecting patient data

May 1, 2011

Medical practices are not only tasked with protecting their patient’s[...]

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Recent Posts

  • Elements of a Comprehensive HIPAA Annual Training
  • Maintaining HIPAA-Compliant Communication Amongst Colleagues
  • Safeguarding Patient Privacy through Proper Record Disposal
  • Why Your SMB Needs SAT
  • Non-Cloud Backups: A Lifeline for Healthcare

Recent Comments

  • Art on Maintaining HIPAA-Compliant Communication Amongst Colleagues
  • Michell Holmes on Maintaining HIPAA-Compliant Communication Amongst Colleagues
  • campusmedicine important source on You Can Leave a Message – But Make Sure It Is HIPAA Compliant
  • Milan on PHI or PII – What’s the Difference?
  • Automatic Backlinks on Free HIPAA Security Training!

Archives

  • September 2023
  • August 2023
  • July 2023
  • June 2023
  • May 2023
  • April 2023
  • March 2023
  • February 2023
  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011

Categories

  • Backup & Disaster Recovery
  • Business Associates
  • Client News
  • Download
  • Healthcare Industry
  • HIPAA
  • HIPAA Audits
  • HIPAA Violations
  • HSN News
  • Legal
  • MACRA
  • Policies and Procedures
  • Press Release
  • Remote Workforce
  • Risk Assessment
  • Scams
  • Security
  • Security Reminders
  • Security Training
  • Telehealth
  • Uncategorized
  • Webinar
  • Website

Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Contact Us

  • HIPAA Secure Now
  • 55 Madison Ave, Suite 400 Morristown, NJ 07960
  • (877) 275 - 4545
  • info@hipaasecurenow.com

Find us on Social Media

Recent Posts

  • Elements of a Comprehensive HIPAA Annual Training September 22, 2023
  • Maintaining HIPAA-Compliant Communication Amongst Colleagues September 15, 2023
  • Safeguarding Patient Privacy through Proper Record Disposal September 11, 2023
  • Why Your SMB Needs SAT September 1, 2023
  • Non-Cloud Backups: A Lifeline for Healthcare August 28, 2023

Subscribe to our Newsletter

  • Hidden

© 2023 · HIPAA Secure Now!

Prev Next