With 2019 on track to be the worst year ever for data breaches, this is not only bad news for individual consumers and the breached businesses but all businesses that operate online — big and small.
Recent high-profile data breaches (such as Capital One, Facebook, Equifax, Quest Diagnostics) flooded the web with users’ personal information, such as name, Social Security number, address, credit card numbers, passwords, and the like. For bad actors, that’s a treasure trove of data to be weaponized and used to commit fraud across the internet.
Put bluntly, every business has to deal with the repercussions of breaches whether directly involved or not. Why? Because most people practice poor password hygiene. According to Dashlane, a password management app, nearly half of U.S. workers use their personal passwords for their work accounts. Furthermore, a poll conducted by LogMeIn discovered nearly 60% of those surveyed also use the same password everywhere. That doesn’t just put consumers at risk, but it puts every business those consumers interact with squarely in fraudsters’ crosshairs.