Multiple news outlets released information that Yahoo!’s systems had been breached by Russian hackers in 2014. Hackers were able to gain access to over 500 million email accounts and sensitive information that potentially included passwords, security question responses, phone numbers, and date of birth for the breached accounts. To date, this is one of the largest data breaches in history.  Due to the information that has been taken, we are actively recommending to all of our clients to take a moment and review the security of their online accounts.

YAHOO! USERS

If you have had a Yahoo! account including any affiliate services offered by Yahoo! (including Flickr and potentially your AT&T and BellSouth email accounts), you should do the following:

1. Reset your password and your security questions,
2. Enable two-factor authentication on your email accounts,
3. Reset passwords for other online accounts that may have the same password or security question responses, and
4. Look for suspicious activity in your online accounts, and if you see any suspicious activity in any of your accounts; you should do the following:
   • Consider contacting law enforcement.
   • Contact your BIP Wealth Wealth Advisor, so we can take the appropriate steps regarding your managed accounts.
   • Contact your BIP Wealth Wealth Advisor so we can take the appropriate steps regarding your managed accounts.

If you have other professionals or other individuals who may have access to your personal information, we would recommend that you contact them and let them know to be on the lookout for any unusual activity.

 

BEST PRACTICES FOR KEEPING YOUR INFORMATION SAFE

In the past few years, there has been a significant spike in hacking attempts. Hackers are getting more sophisticated in their attempts to gain information and compromise accounts. Although each situation has unique circumstances, there are a few steps that you can take to help keep your online accounts safe:

• Do not use the same password on multiple sites.
• Enable security features like two-factor authentication and login notifications where that is available to you.
• Minimize the amount of personal / sensitive information that you include in emails and store online, especially in an unencrypted format.
• It is anticipated that as a result of this breach, there will be attempts made by other hackers to compromise your accounts, so be cautious of attachments that you receive and links that you click on.
• Be vigilant in monitoring your accounts for suspicious activity.

 

WHAT BIP IS DOING

At BIP Wealth, we take any breach of this nature to be a very serious matter. Our team is actively reviewing our systems and contacting any clients that we see have a Yahoo! account in our database to make sure the clients are aware of the breach and ensure that we have an up-to-date email.

 

BIP’S COMMITMENT TO INFORMATION SECURITY

We believe that information security is a partnership and strive to keep you up-to-date on events where your information may be at risk. We train our team on what to do regarding managed accounts in the event of a breach of client email, and we continue to invest in our infrastructure to keep client information secure. If you have not already done so, please take a look at our Privacy Notice for a description of the types of information that we store and the measures that we take to protect your personal information.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact your Personal Wealth Advisor.