The retail giant said it believes that PINs are not revealed to thieves because they are strongly encrypted and can only be decrypted by an independent external payment processor. However, since the target is in the early stages of the investigation, there is a possibility that the encrypted PINs could be revealed to the thieves. The Minneapolis-based company said it is working with the Department of Justice and the secret services during the investigation.
What should I do if I fell victim of the violation of target data?
If you shopped at a Target store between 27 November to 15 December, then there is a good chance that your information may have been stolen in data breach because more than 1,800 US stores were targeted the flight. Fortunately, there is a crucial step you can take to ensure your personal information remains secure.
The essential step you should take is call your bank and request a new debit or credit card with a new number . It is essential that this step, no matter whether you find fraudulent activity on your account credit or debit card because millions of stolen data has already been sold to identity thieves on the black market Internet. This means that even if your finances are not yet affected, there is a strong chance that you will feel the effects of the subsequent breach. By canceling your credit or debit card, make sure that your financial information will not be compromised.
How can I ensure that my identity remain safe?
There is no way to guarantee the security of your identity, but there are actions you can take to protect yourself against identity theft. The first thing you need to do is check your credit and debit card statements regularly and carefully. Make sure you have completed all transactions and call your bank immediately if you find any possible fraudulent transactions.
In addition to checking your credit card statements, you should also shred any document or junk mail containing personal information . This is an action that most people do not realize is essential to protect against theft. Identity thieves have a reputation for digging through the trash to try to collect personal information they can. Once they have collected all the information, they try to reconstruct the identity of the person using some online tools - such as people search websites and social media -. To acquire more information successfully until they have enough to steal the identity of the victim
The last step you need to take to ensure that your identity remains safe is monitor your credit reports . Although you can access an annual free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com, once a year is not always enough to catch the flight before it wreaks havoc on your credit. That is why it is wise to consider signing up for a credit report monitoring service. These services are actively monitoring your credit and providing real-time alerts whenever a change is made to your credit reports so that you can immediately catch the flight possible.
If you want to protect your identity a little further, then you may want subscribe to a protection service against identity theft . These services not only complement most of the actions described above, but also to take additional steps to verify the security of your identity - such as monitoring your personal and banking information on the black market of the Internet to ensure that it is not sold or traded to identity thieves. Most of these services come with some kind of free trial that allows you to test the service before making a financial commitment and costs less than $ 20 per month. See which service will best suit your needs and budget reviews by visiting our protection against identity theft.
If you think the target data breach made you fall victim to identity theft, then you should follow this step by step guide to restoring your identity and your good name and credit.