Last December PayPal received a cyberattack that resulted in more than 35,000 stolen Social Security numbers. The attack targeted this company and involved credential spoofing, as reported by the company itself in a regulatory document addressed to the public.
The attack took place last December. Specifically, PayPal was attacked between December 6 and 8. This was last year, in 2022. But it wasn’t until December 20 of the same year that they realized that the cyber thieves had gotten their hands on Social Security user data.
But not only had they stolen the Social Security card numbers, but through this cyber-attack they also obtained other important data. In addition to user names, they also obtained addresses, dates of birth and ID numbers.
What about the affected PayPal accounts and Social Security users?
According to the information submitted by PayPal, no data has been misused. There is no indication that financial information has been misused. So in the end, customer accounts appear to be safe.
The company’s payment methods have not suffered any problems either. After this, PayPal has reset the passwords of the accounts affected by the cyberattack. So, security is again fine for these Social Security users.
How to protect ourselves from cyber-attacks?
There are many ways to protect our information against cyber-attacks. If we do not want our Social Security number to be compromised, we should keep the following in mind:
- Do not give our information to strangers.
- Avoid using our Social Security number on untrusted websites.
- Use secure passwords.
- Do not use the same password in different places.
On the other hand, if we think that our Social Security number has been compromised, we should report it immediately. We should not let unknown people use our data.