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885 Million Financial Records Exposed Online

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When I discuss financial security with clients and investors, I always encourage them to be proactive. The only person who will ever make your security the absolute highest priority is you. As part of my never complete efforts to protect myself from financial fraud, I have signed up for LifeLock (I am not a paid LifeLock advocate, I just believe in the product).

Recently LifeLock users were warned of the exposure of 885 million financial records from First American Financial Corp. The company emailed users:

On Friday, an independent security journalist revealed that First American Financial Corp had up to 885 million sensitive customer financial records exposed on its website going back to 2003.

First American is the top title insurance firm in the United States. They often handle both the buyer and lender sides of real estate transactions across the country. The personal information found in the database includes combinations of:

  • Social Security numbers
  • Driver’s license images
  • Bank account numbers
  • Mortgage and tax documents
  • Wire transaction receipts

There was no indication that any of the data was stolen during the exposure and First American has taken down the site. The company has hired a firm to assess whether customer data was stolen.

What does this mean?

A data exposure or data leak is different from a data breach. In a breach, unauthorized access to sensitive information is intentional. In a data exposure like this one, the sensitive information is left out in the open, often because the server was not set up with the proper security.

Make sure you are getting everything your LifeLock membership has to offer. If you haven’t already, log in to your Member Portal and complete your profile to ensure that LifeLock is monitoring† your personal information, including any email addresses you use regularly, financial accounts, and more.

Due to this event, we may be experiencing high call volume and don’t want you to be inconvenienced with wait times. If we detect your personal information being used within our network, we’ll send you an alert.

Read more about LifeLock here.

Originally posted on Your Survival Guy. 

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E.J. Smith

Editor-in-Chief
E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zilldjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@youngresearch.com.