I received an alert about my email address being found in a data leak. Now what?

What triggers this alert?

• Your email may have been compromised due to a data breach.
• An email that was part of a previous data breach may have been included in a large combined list of several data breaches. 
• Some businesses sell your information to data brokers for marketing and advertisements. It may have landed in the wrong hands and been sold on the dark web. Learn more about the dark web here.

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What can I do?

While it’s scary to have your information leaked, hackers and scammers can’t do much with your email address by itself. They mainly use this information to target addresses that are in active use.

Although data found on the Dark Web cannot be removed, these tips can help you be proactive:

• Be on the lookout for spam and phishing messages. Once they learn your email, hackers often use phishing schemes to trick you into giving up money or information. Learn more about how to prevent phishing here.
• Make sure your email account is protected with a strong password to prevent hackers from accessing it.

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