(WJAR) —Last year alone, there were more than 3,300 data breaches in the United States.
With so much of our personal information getting exposed in these breaches, Bentley University professor and creator of scamicide.com Steve Weisman said, at some point, most of us will become victims.
He said scammers are capitalizing on that probability.
“We’re always getting these notices regarding data breaches and what we might be eligible for,” explained Weisman.
He continued, “So the scammers are taking advantage of it – they’re now sending notices that appear to be from a company where a data breach hit.”
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One red flag that the notification you received is a scam: the letter or email includes a QR code.
“One reason they’ll use QR codes in these emails is a lot of emails will have screening software to pick up certain scams, but they can’t pick up scams that are in QR codes,” said Weisman.
Weisman said if you follow the link in the QR code it will take you to a fake form that looks legitimate.
He said these phony forms often ask for sensitive information like Social Security number. Revealing that information can make you the victim of identity theft.
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