SAN FRANCISCO — Major banks, retailers and other businesses warned their customers on Monday to be on the lookout for possible e-mail schemes after a security breach at an online marketing firm exposed the e-mail addresses and names of millions of customers.
The marketing firm, Epsilon, which handles e-mail marketing lists for prominent companies like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Kroger, Walgreens and Disney issued a brief statement on Friday saying that hackers had stolen names and e-mail addresses of customers.
The sheer scale of the breach surfaced over the weekend and on Monday, as companies began alerting customers to be vigilant for so-called phishing frauds, which purport to be from a legitimate business but are intended to steal information like account numbers or passwords. The companies that alerted customers or admitted to being affected also include Barclays Bank, US Bancorp, Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Best Buy, L.L. Bean, Home Shopping Network and TiVo.
In e-mails to their customers, the companies asked them to be cautious but also sought to reassure them that the hackers obtained only e-mail addresses and names, not passwords, account numbers, credit card information or other more sensitive data.
“Your account and any other personally identifiable information were not at risk,” the clothing retailer, New York and Company, told its customers in an e-mail. “Please note, it is possible you may receive spam e-mail messages as a result. We want to urge you to be cautious when opening links or attachments from unknown third parties. We also want to remind you that we will never ask you for your personal information in an e-mail.”
In a telephone interview, Jessica Simon, a spokeswoman for Epsilon, which is based in Irving, Tex., said: “We are currently working with authorities and are conducting a full investigation. We are limited in what we can share.”
Epsilon has some 2,500 clients, though not all of them use its-mail marketing services. The company said that about 2 percent of its clients were affected. It declined to say how the hack occurred or why the email addresses were not encrypted.
News Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/05/business/05hack.html?_r=1
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