I haven’t opened the email, I’m just looking at the preview that gmail provides and it contains the name of my email with the first character missing and most of my phone number, like I stated in the title of my post. How concerned, if at all, should I be and is there anything I should be doing?
Considering how many data breaches have happened this year alone, I wouldn’t be very surprised if your phone number was leaked in one of them, along with your email address. Make sure you use unique passwords for all your online accounts (a password manager can help with this).
I’ve literally gotten spam emails that include a real password I’ve used in the past in the subject with some vaguely threatening message. Thanks to all these leaks, spammers are getting more targeted. Luckily I’ve been generating all my passwords for the last few years so I don’t have to worry about specific passwords getting out as much anymore.
I do already use different passwords for every account that I have and I changed my Gmail password recently. Is there anything else I should be worried about?
You can use email aliases or even go as far as a phone alias as well.
Been using Mozilla relay for a while and the phone number option is nice to mask your real number for some things.
It does report as a VOIP number so some services can’t use it.
There are plenty of companies that will sell your name, email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses, marital status, and relative’s names. They obtain the information from publicly sold databases. I had access to one that had all that, plus the registration info for the car I drive, my estimated income, my military record, my driving record, my political party preference, and pictures of my home that had been on the realtor’s website.
The scary one was when a phone center employee in the Philippines stole my wife’s debit card number and then did two big Western Union MoneyGram transfers to a couple of Filipino men. That means bad actors have access to the credit companies’ databases from which Western Union draws their proof of identity questions, like who holds your mortgage, where you lived when you were 10, and the make/model of your first vehicle.
If you’re well-off enough to be a financial fraud target, paying a company for identity theft protection is probably well worth it. Put fraud alerts in with all the major credit bureaus too. That usually stops identity thieves from accessing your credit. If you use 2FA with your phone, make sure your telecom provider will not transfer your number to a new device without in-person authorization and authentication.
I once received an email with one of my passwords in it. It’s spooky when they get your info and reach out!
Well that’s nice of them, now you can easily just change that password which of course you only use for one account.
tip: use haveibeenpwned to see where your passwords have gotten leaked.
