Recent cyberattacks targeting military members may lead to theft of personal information

Cyberattacks are on the rise. These attacks not only compromise our national security but our personal and financial security as well.

Cyberspies from Russia to China to Iran have recently targeted individual active duty and veteran military members, using false personas on social media networks as well as other tactics to obtain sensitive information.

Military branches and the Pentagon also have experienced data breaches in the last few years.
These events have put military members and veterans especially at risk, said Scott Hermann, IDIQ℠ co-owner and CEO and one of the nation’s leading experts in credit monitoring, identity theft protection, and data breaches.

Hermann said military members and recently retired veterans are doubly vulnerable because of the low number of transactions on their accounts, making them attractive to identity thieves.

“Thieves tend to target people who don’t make a lot of transactions,” he said. “If you are in the military or just came out of the military, often you haven’t been making a lot of credit or financial transactions. Identity thieves see this as an easy target who typically won’t be monitoring his or her accounts.”

Hermann said actively monitoring credit and identity information is important so you can receive alerts for suspicious activity and act quickly before identity thieves can strike.

“If your personal information is stolen, the thief can go to the car dealership and open up an auto loan in your name,” he said. “If you aren’t monitoring your credit information you won’t know about that loan. You won’t be paying on that loan – because you don’t know about it – and your credit will be negatively affected.

“If you are actively monitoring your credit and identity information, you will be alerted to the new auto loan and be able to report it as fraud.”

Along with attempting to take out loans with stolen personal and financial information, identity thieves can attempt to open new credit cards, clone ATM or debit cards, change a billing address, obtain a new driver’s license or other forms of ID, and use that false identity when questioned by police.

“It’s important for everyone to have credit monitoring, but especially for someone in the military or a military veteran,” he said. “When an identity theft occurs, it may have a significant negative impact on credit.

“Credit monitoring is the most important thing you can do. If you aren’t monitoring, you aren’t paying attention to your personal information.”

Hermann said education also is an important part of identity theft protection. He said, along with regularly updating passwords, be aware that methods a thief uses don’t always include hacking. Phishing scams and other tactics are used to gather personal information over the phone, text, and emails.

For more information and education on credit monitoring and protection against identity theft, visit identityiq.com.

Based in Southern California, IDIQ is recognized as one of the fastest-growing industry leaders in credit and identity theft monitoring and data breach management. IDIQ operates the flagship IdentityIQ℠ brand for active delivery of credit and identity monitoring and protection. IDIQ and its IdentityIQ brand are a proud supporter of active duty and veteran military members and their families.

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