According to their website, in March of this year, online retailer Batteries.com learned of a hacker that had access to their customer records. A customer reported to them that there was unauthorized activity regarding a credit account and the company launched an investigation. Records that were potentially accessible were names, addresses and credit card information.

In addition to their investigation, the company is using additional protective measures to prevent this from happening in the future. Major credit card companies have been notified and the company is working with authorities to identify the responsible party.

Those who have been affected by the incident should receive a letter offering free credit monitoring services for 2 years. The company wants customers to be aware that they are not making phone calls asking for personal information from customers. Letters are being sent and customers are able to contact the company directly.

Customers should also take as many preventative measures as possible from having their information used for theft purposes. We have posted many articles on how you can  protect yourself from identity theft by: protecting any financial documents, shredding as much as possible, having very strong website passwords, only giving your social security number when necessary, removing yourself from pre-approved credit offers, only keeping necessary documents/cards in your wallet and more.

Keep in mind that even by protecting your own information, there are some businesses that have it and you are only protected as well as they protect their records. Having an identity theft protection service that is looking out for your well being is a good idea when you don’t have total control over your own information.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under Data Breach. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.