Malware Puts Regional UPS Customers at Risk

The Vestal, NY location of UPS has recently notified customers that they have been the victim of a data breach that has affected over 50 stores. According to a spokeswoman for UPS, any customer who had used a credit or debit card at the affected stores between April 29, 2014 and August 11, 2014 could be impacted.

UPS is providing information, identity protection, and credit monitoring services to customers concerned that their financial information may have been compromised. The New York State Attorney's office admitted that it is difficult to protect yourself against situations like this at retail locations, but added that there are many ways to protect yourself against invasions of your personal and financial information.

NYS Assistant Attorney General Michael Danaher explains one of them, "When your credit card statement comes in; when your bank statement comes in each month, look at it as soon as it comes in. That's the easiest way that you can pick up on this and the quickest way."

Approximately 15 million people have their identities used fraudulently each year in the United States, resulting in over $50 billions in financial losses. Of the over two millions customer complaints filed with the Federal Trade Commission's Consumer Sentinel Network (CSN) in 2013, Over 140,000 of them were related to identity theft. It is said that around 7% of all adult Americans will deal with some form of identity theft in the upcoming year. Simply put, individuals need to protect themselves.

For businesses, the threat is even larger. In one study of over 500 U.S. companies suggests that around 90% of all businesses have been hacked at some point in the past year, and half of them were breached more than once. The bottom line is that it's easier to work to eliminate this risk than lose customers because you've transferred that risk onto them.

At Directive, we provide remote monitoring and proactive maintenance for all of your core IT systems, so our clients aren't faced with the perils of this nature. In addition to our remote monitoring and maintenance service, we can implement several security solutions that can work to keep malware and hackers out of your system.

Call us today at 607-433-2200 to get more information about the solutions we can provide to protect you and your business.