Your email addy has been compromised. Honest.

If you haven't already gotten a couple of email alerts from people you do business with or seen it on the news, you should be aware that a company named Epsilon suffered a security breach recently which has possibly resulted in your email address being collected by persons unknown.

Epsilon manages e-mail campaigns and sends offers to consumers who sign up for a company's website or who share their e-mail addresses while shopping. They send more than 40 billion e-mails annually. Epsilon's clients include Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase, Barclays PLC, US Bancorp, Capital One, TD Ameritrade, Walgreen, Kroger, Brookstone, J. Crew, Best Buy, Marriott International, Ritz-Carlton, Disney Destinations, Verizon, Target, Ethan Allen, TiVo and more.

Click on this link to see a full list of companies involved at Threatpost.com.

If you've shared your email address one of the companies affected, there's a chance it may have been exposed.

Thus far, reports say that only email addresses were compromised, and not more personal info or financial/credit card data. This seems likely, since Epsilon is a marketing firm that supplies email services to the companies mentioned above. They are a contractor who performs email services.

Moreover, it's not certain who was behind the intrusion or what the motive was. It might have been script kiddies (people who hack systems just because they can, and for bragging rights), or it may have been serious phishers (people who want to con you into giving up the real data, like your credit card or password).

So what'll happen? Maybe nothing. Or maybe you'll see a slight uptick in junk mail. But possibly, some serious phishing will start popping up in mailboxes worldwide.

The bottom line? As always, be on guard against not only the obviously fraudulent emails, like the ones from the Minister of Finance of Nigeria, but be aware of emails that come from sources that look legitimate.

Your bank or financial institution will NEVER enclose a link to get to their web site; they'll tell you to go there yourself and log in with your User ID and password.

Be wary of opening emails from people you don't know -- the simple act of just opening an email can put you on a spam mailing list. Never click a link to a site that might put your Social Security number or other financial info at risk, and never download an attachment unless you know the sender personally.

(You might also take a look at your Facebook profile and restrict the amount of info you share, and reduce the potential audience to 'Friends Only.' Just a thought...)

Only time will tell if anything more than what's been publicized already has been put at risk, and you're never going to completely insulate yourself unless you unplug your computer altogether...but use your head when visiting web sites and opening emails, OK?


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