How to protect yourself against data leaks | Casa

How to protect yourself against data leaks

by Ron Stoner 6 years ago 7 min read

In a world ever-reliant on the connectivity between our physical and digital identities, how can you ensure your personal information is safe from hackers and data breaches? Here are Casa’s top tips for optimal protection.

It’s a situation that no one wants to find themselves in. More and more in our modern, digital times, we find ourselves faced with the fear and uncertainty surrounding the news of a personal data breach. From our names to home addresses, phone numbers, and emails, it’s never been more crucial to protect our digital identities.

Recently, a hacked Ledger database containing 272,853 personal records including customer names, physical mailing addresses, phone numbers, and over 1 million email addresses was publicly leaked.

Today we were alerted to the dump of the contents of a Ledger customer database on Raidforum. We are still confirming, but early signs tell us that this indeed could be the contents of our e-commerce database from June, 2020.

While the data breach itself took place in July 2020, the data was recently released on a hacker forum specifically geared towards selling database and personal information dumps. These markets operate by selling and reselling information obtained in hacks and social engineering engagements performed against companies and third parties such as resellers. Ledger has published information about the leak, including the details of the incident, and updates via Twitter and email.

How to know if you’ve been impacted?

If you’ve purchased a device from the Ledger store, it’s possible you’ve been impacted. Ledger has sent communications to affected customers and you may have an email indicating such.

If you’ve procured your Ledger through Casa or the Casa Store you should NOT be impacted. No parts of Casa’s infrastructure touched the Ledger databases impacted by this breach.

What can I do to stop this? How can I better protect my personal information?

While the answer to the first question requires lots of technical controls and engineering by the companies that are storing your valuable data, the second question can be solved with the following operational security tips.

If you’ve been victimized in a hack - here’s what we recommend:

To minimize the data you share with third parties and protect yourself going forward - check out these suggestions from our security team:

Use a pseudonym

Stan Lee, George Orwell, Lana Del Rey, and Satoshi Nakamoto. The one thing that they all have in common is that these are fictitious names used to disguise real-world personal identities. An attacker wouldn’t be able to find a Social Security Number (SSN) or physical address associated with these names if they were so inclined. A strong alias will have no direct link to your name, profession, location, or interests.

Mailing addresses

Just as we are protecting your first and last name, it’s imperative to protect your mailing and home addresses. In the United States, CMRAs (Commercial Mail Receiving Agency) are private businesses that offer services which filter, forward, and scan images of mail to the intended recipient. To shield your mailing address, consider a remailing service like Earth Class Mail.

Another option can be used are personal and private P.O. and mailboxes.

Phone numbers

Protecting your personal or mobile phone number when making purchases is easy with Voice Over IP (VoIP) and number forwarding and privacy services. The easiest solution is to sign up for a Google Voice account. Using this number for online orders will ensure that your personal telephone number stays safe.

Multiple email accounts

Setting up multiple email accounts with your pseudonym helps to mitigate the risk when an email account is hacked or exposed as a result of a data leak.

Virtual payment cards

Some credit card providers offer virtual or temporary account numbers for purchases. Pseudo account numbers can also have the added benefit of setting maximum limits and authorization to specific merchants.

Use VPN

In our article “How to use Casa pseudonymously” we recommend using a VPN to help protect your internet IP address. VPNs help to shield your IP when interacting with the greater Internet and help protect your identity when sites and services are logging this information.

Delete your information

Not all websites and companies support it, but some allow a user to delete their information and account. Removing information from websites, suppliers, and companies you are no longer using helps to limit the risk of exposure should any of those services ever be hacked.

Password management

Thankfully user passwords were not included in the Ledger database leak. Using a Password Manager prevents other accounts from being compromised due to password re-use.

Two-factor authentication (2FA)

Using 2FA is a great way to improve your digital security. However, you should never use SMS text messages for your 2FA. Instead of SMS-based 2FA, use Google Authenticator (iOS/Android) or Authy apps for iOS or Android.

Multisignature setup

Using a multisignature, multi-location solution like Casa ensures that your funds cannot be compromised from a single hardware wallet or location.

Physical security

In the majority of data breaches, home and office addresses are often exposed causing an increased risk for those present at those locations.

Loose lips sink ships

Following the tips listed above should help you to protect your identity and privacy, but it is all for naught should one expose too much information about their personal operational security setup.

Resources

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