Massive Breach at Epsilon Compromises Customer Lists of Major Brands

Due to the growing list of brands disclosing that they have been compromised as a result of this breach, I’m going to go ahead and tag this as a massive breach. And I only expect it to get bigger as more announcements come out from Epsilon customers.

Last night we reported on a breach at marketing services provider, Epsilon, the world’s largest permission-based email marketing provider. Initially we wrote that the breach had affected Kroger, the nation's largest traditional grocery retailer. There is a list of companies at the link (but I don't know if that is going to be the full list, it sounds like there may be more yet).

It turns out that Kroger is only one of many customers affected by the breach at Epsilon.

Hey I just received notices from Scottrade, Dress Barn, Eddie Bauer... I am sure more will follow soon.

I received over 100 new spam yesterday!!!!

Epsilon should pay!

What are your thoughts?

Interestingly, I haven’t received any spam, yet (altho I bet I will). I don’t know how Epsilon can pay, I’m not sure what they can do for us (we haven’t actually had a financial loss, so legally what can they do for us). An believe me, I’m angry. I suppose they can be made to go out of business, and some lawyers can be made rich, but even if the company were dissolved and all of their assets were divvied up among all of the people affected (or potentially affected) I wonder how much everyone would get (after even reasonable attorney fees)?

I save my real anger for the culprits who perpetuate these sorts of crimes and no one even seems to have an interest in even trying to figure out how to track them down and doing anything to them. On the other hand, I am not giving my email address out to ANYONE anymore unless it is absolutely necessary. In fact, I had stopped doing it about the last year anyway, even tho it’s a bit of a pain as every time you buy something in a store nowadays they ask. I will now tell them no and tell them it’s because of THIS.

We got emails from Charter cable and Chase bank that they got our email addresses.

Hopefully nothing comes of it...

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