GoDaddy profile by socially engineering a customer service representative embedded at the hosting giant's offices.
Don't get me wrong here. I'm a huge GoDaddy fan. In fact, I've been with the company for over a decade. And, to GoDaddy's claim, they did give me a massive account credit to use towards any purchase. Clearly, I won't have to pay for domains or hosting for a very long time to come. However, it doesn't feel good being the victim of an identity theft. When it's a one-off situation, it feels even worse. This wasn't part of some greater scheme that infiltrated the company to release millions of records of consumers; it was a very personal and private attack.
Now, if you're thinking that I was silly by not utilizing two-factor authentication, you'd be wrong. My GoDaddy account was two-factor enabled. So what happened here? Aside from a major misstep on the part of GoDaddy to protect my data, which they've stated "was an isolated incident caused by human error when a representative failed to follow standard operating procedures," according to Todd Redfoot, Chief Information Security Officer, there's a larger question at play here.
The question is, how do you protect your identity from hackers and cyber-thieves who are hell-bent on penetrating and stealing your financial or personal records in an effort to profit or get rich from that data?
Protecting Your Identity From Theft
We've heard about major recent hacks in the news lately. From Sony's epic infiltration to Yahoo's security debacle and even Target's woes in the retail space, hacks are happening on a massive scale all around us. It's constantly in the news. In another article, where I discussed some of the top cybersecurity threats that exist online, I dove deep into all the different ways that criminals can access your personal information and what you can do to protect your identity.
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