Epsilon Data Breach - What you can do to protect yourself

One of the biggest stories in the news is that Epsilon, a marketing services company, reported a data breach Friday, April 1, 2011, that affected multiple banks and retailers. Please note that SouthPoint Federal Credit Union DOES NOT contract with Epsilon.

According to Epsilon, only email addresses and customer names were obtained. However, many of the financial institutions affected warned that this information could be used in phishing attacks.

We advise members to be on the watch for phishing emails. Watch your emails carefully and beware of emails that pretend to be from legitimate retailer, organization, or financial institution. Here are a couple tips that should always be followed:

• Do not open emails from senders you do not know
• Do not share personal information via email
• Do not click on links from email sources you are not familiar with
• Do not open attachments in emails from sources you are not familiar with

When it comes to scams, knowledge is your best defense. SouthPoint will NEVER contact you to via email to request personal information such as account numbers, credit card numbers or social security numbers. So, if you receive any type of solicitation asking for personal financial information, do NOT provide it - it's a scam.

Brian Goblirsch, Fraud Team with SouthPoint