Epsilon: Hackers strikes back

In the recent cyber attach Epsilon one of the Worlds largest internet marketing firm has been hacked and as a result the hackers got the email ids of millions of people. Epsilon worked as a third party marketing company with various major organizations and if you are the customer of these big organizations then chances are your email address is with these hackers. Major clients of Epsilon includes Citi, Marriott, Best Buy, Kroger, JP Morgan, Bank One & Walgreens.

Epsilon deals with major email marketing and claims to be number 1 in the World, sending around 40 billion emails annually. Seems the hackers hit the jackpot and yours and my email-mailboxes can be flooded with more junk emails (duh !!!).

I got 2 emails in just one day one from Marriott and another one from Citi teaching me what should I do in case of such breach (as if I don’t know any of this before). Once again hackers have proved that the security system is vulnerable and can be compromised easily. Hope there is no major information in the wrong hands at the right time.

These are the emails send to me by Marriott & Citi (atleast this the best they can do at this time).
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April 4, 2011

Dear Marriott Customer,

We were recently notified by Epsilon, a marketing vendor used by Marriott International, Inc. to manage customer emails, that an unauthorized third party gained access to a number of Epsilon's accounts including Marriott's email list.

In all likelihood, this will not impact you. However, we recommend that you continue to be on the alert for spam emails requesting personal or sensitive information. Please understand and be assured that Marriott does not send emails requesting customers to verify personal information.

We take your privacy very seriously. Marriott has a long-standing commitment to protecting the privacy of the personal information that our guests entrust to us. We regret this has taken place and apologize for any inconvenience.

Please visit our FAQ to learn more.

Sincerely,

Marriott International, Inc.

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Dear Customer,

Recently, Citi was notified of a system breach at Epsilon, a third-party vendor that provides marketing services to a number of companies, including Citi. The information obtained was limited to the customer name and email address of some credit card customers. No account information or other information was compromised and therefore there is no reason to re-issue a new card.

Because e-mail addresses can be used for "phishing" attacks, we want to remind our customers of the following:

Citi Cards uses an Email Security Zone in all of our email to help you recognize that the email was sent by us. Customers should check the Email Security Zone to verify that the email you received is from Citi and reduce the risk of personal information being "phished." To help you recognize that the email was sent by Citi we will always include the following in the Email Security Zone in the top headline portion of all our emails:
Your first name and last name
Last four digits of your Citi card account number
And recently to increase security, we have added your “member since” date located on the front of your card, where available.