Breaches abound: 3 factors that increase identity theft risk

The breaches that came to light during summer of 2018 have come in all shapes and sizes. A recent breach at reservation software platform FastBooking, for instance, affected at least 400 hotels in Japan, while one at Ticketmaster UK affected 40,000 people in the U.K. Both exposed their customers’ names and contact and financial information. But a breach at Florida-based marketing and data aggregation firm Exactis exposed much, much more.

According to Wired magazine, up to 2 terabytes of data was stolen from Exactis. While the data did not include financial information or Social Security numbers, it did include contact information and marketing data on people’s personal characteristics, interests and habits.

To be sure, these breaches pose a risk of fraud for all those affected. But whether such fraud rises to the level of identity theft — the most menacing type — is another matter. Such a risk is not determined by a breach’s size and scope, but the type of data and the victims it compromises, and even the length of time since it happened.