Geico Issues Notice of Breach, Resolution
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Between January 21st and March 1st, Geico experienced a breach most likely affecting more than 500 Californian customers, as it is required for companies to notify the state when more than 500 customers have been affected. Geico has fixed the breach and offered a free year of their identity theft protection program.
Geico believes that the most likely motive of these attacks was to file fraudulent unemployment claims. This has been a rising issue, among many other incidents, since the nationwide shutdowns and the emergence of COVID-19 relief programs.
On April 9th, Geico issued a statement to customers affected by their recent breach. They state that fraudsters used information gathered elsewhere to gain unauthorized access to their customers’ driver’s license numbers.
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Why Is This Information Important?
Many criminals will target large government entities in order to obtain funds. The issue is that they often need official identification credentials, the most easily accessible being driver’s license numbers. Using other public identifying information, they are able to access insurers’ sales systems and files which include driver’s license numbers of a large portion of the population.
SEE ALSO Hackers Stole Millions from Washington State Unemployment
Look Out For Red Flags
Geico urged their customers to look out for correspondence from the government looking for confirmation regarding unemployment benefits. This is a main sign that one’s personal information has been used by fraudulent parties and would prompt an incident report.
Protect yourself with identity theft monitoring. That way you can know if someone has opened up a credit card or bank account in your name.
