The news about the severe security breach that occurred a few weeks ago were covered by almost all news and media both online and offline, so you’ve surely heard something about it already. It’s one of the greatest successful hacks in recent history in which many personal details about 77 million people around the world were obtained by a third, unknown party.

The personal details that were stolen included first and last names, bank account numbers, addresses, emails, and worst of all credit card numbers and their expiration dates. With such a vast database of information there’s a high risk of identity theft issues that may arrise, so in this post I’ll give you a few potential risks you should be aware of.

Credit cards

First of all, although credit card numbers and their expiration dates are unusable because no CVC codes were stolen, there is still risk they could be used. There were over 2 million credit card numbers stolen. If you do the simple math, if one was to use a random number for all credit cards as CVC code that would still be 2000 people that could have unwanted charges on their cards.

Passwords

User passwords for the Playstation networks were also stolen, and it’s highly advised for everyone to change them as soon as possible. The bigger risk is however that there’s certainly a great deal of people who may use the same email and password for other online services such as Facebook, which leaves a lot of room for further abuse.

Personal info

As with any unnecessary personal info you give out to strangers there’s always a risk involved. If these details get in the wrong hands there’s a lot of people who might become victims of ID theft and it’s certainly something to keep in mind.

Phishing emails

With all the personal information out there, including bank account numbers it would be fairly easy for someone to send out phishing emails to individuals and gain access to further information and details. Be aware of any emails coming from your banks and verify that they are in fact legitimate. Not only that, but if you do click any links in those emails take extra precautions and double-check that the URL in your browser is in fact the official bank website.

While there’s still no reports of anyone becoming a victim of identity theft or having any weird credit card charges, having this information in the hands of an unknown individual(s) is always a high risk. Be sure to read more about protecting yourself from identity theft online in this post, and make sure you do everything you can to avoid any potential ID thefts.