Over the weekend, if you’re a current or former AT&T customer, you might have received an alert. 

“In a Saturday announcement, [AT&T] said that a dataset found on the ‘dark web’ contains information including some Social Security numbers and passcodes for about 7.6 million current account holders and 65.4 million former account holders,” the Associated Press says. 

That means the personal information of about 73 million accounts is compromised in some way. 

Here’s the “good” news: “The impacted data is from 2019 or earlier and does not appear to include financial information or call history, the company said,” says AP. 

But sensitive data now in the hands of fraudsters does include Social Security numbers as well as customer passcodes (i.e. four-digit personal pin numbers). 

Plus? “Full names, email addresses, mailing addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth and AT&T account numbers may have also been compromised.” 

According to WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou: “After all the major data breaches in recent years, it’s a fair assumption that your personal information is already available to fraudsters and scammers.

“Consumers should therefore think about premium ways of protecting their identity,” he says. Some tips for protecting your personal information (from simplest to most difficult) include… 

• Don’t Take the Bait: Never respond to unsolicited requests for your personal information via phone call, email or text. And, in the aftermath of the AT&T data breach: “Don’t be surprised if you see an uptick in [calls] and emails requesting personal information,” WalletHub notes. “Never answer if you didn’t ask to be contacted.” 

• Enable Two-Factor Authentication: “Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security system that requires two distinct forms of identification in order to access [your accounts],” Investopedia says. 

• Freeze Credit Reports: You can freeze your three major credit reports from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. “This will prevent anyone but you from accessing them, thus making it impossible to take out a loan or line of credit,” says WalletHub. 

• Identity Theft Insurance: Admittedly, there’s only so much you can do to protect your private data. In some instances, for a monthly fee, you might consider identity theft insurance which provides vigilant account monitoring, fraud coverage and access to identity restoration experts.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you’ve been the target of identity theft and how you've protected yourself moving forward. 

Now, onto some reader mail… 

Send your opinions to, feedback@newsyoucanacton.com

Your Rundown for Monday, April 1, 2024...

Another Afghanistan? 

“It should be obvious to anyone that, without massive external aid, Ukraine has no chance of ‘winning’ in any conventional sense,” says our first contributor today. “Why this is perceived as ‘pro-Russia’ is beyond comprehension.” 

A second reader rejoins: “There is talk (rejected, so far, by Ukraine and the West) about the need for negotiations. 

“But, at this point, Russia has no need or desire for negotiations, nor do they trust the West to abide by any agreements they might make, given the string of broken promises and bad faith. 

“Russia continues to grind ahead, wearing down Ukraine's army, to the point where soon they will probably be able to march, with little resistance, across the Romanian border, cutting off all Ukrainian access to the Black Sea,” he says. 

“I don't know that they WILL do that. I don't know Russian plans or intentions, but I do suspect that this will all be pretty much resolved before next winter arrives, and not in Ukraine's favor. 

“I would not be surprised in the least to see the U.S. pull another Afghanistan-type exit, trying to delete the whole Ukrainian episode from the collective memory,” he concludes. 

“I am sure that the U.S. government would like to postpone such events until after the first week of November, but that may not be within their control.” 

Market Rundown for Monday, Apr. 1, 2024

The S&P 500 is up 0.15% to 5,260. 

Oil is up 0.20% to $83.34 for a barrel of WTI. 

Citing Kitco, gold is up 0.65% to $2,247.60 per ounce. 

But Bitcoin’s pulled back 1.35% to $70,000. 

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