Online retailers frequently collect birth dates for marketing and customer targeting, inadvertently creating high-value targets for data breaches. Stolen retail records are often enriched with social media details and employment histories to make fraudulent inquiries appear legitimate. A recent hack of retailer Asos demonstrated this risk after customer dates of birth were compromised alongside other account details. To mitigate threats, experts advise consumers to provide false dates or leave optional fields empty on retail platforms.
Key points
Consumers should omit birth dates entirely on sign-up forms or provide a consistent fake…: Consumers should omit birth dates entirely on sign-up forms or provide a consistent fake date across online retail platforms.
Accurate dates of birth should strictly be reserved for entities that verify identities a…: Accurate dates of birth should strictly be reserved for entities that verify identities against official records, including banks and tax authorities.
Maintaining separate email addresses for online shopping allows customers to discard comp…: Maintaining separate email addresses for online shopping allows customers to discard compromised accounts easily after a data breach occurs.
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You get a call from your bank saying there has been suspicious activity on your account. They read out your name, address and date of birth so you are happy it is a legitimate caller.
But you are talking to criminals who have used your date of birth as part of a web of verifying information to convince you they are someone else.
People’s DOBs are often held in online accounts after being entered as part of a sign-up process for a retailer, loyalty scheme, newsletter or online competition. In a recent hack of the online retailer Asos customers’ dates of birth were among the details taken by scammers.
Now cybersecurity professionals have warned people to resist entering a date of birth, or to put in a fake one, to limit the amount of personal data that is online, frustrating criminals’ attempts to “jigsaw” together personal profiles.
Jake Moore, an adviser for the cybersecurity company ESET, says information gathered during hacks can be sold on and used by scammers, either to trick people into trusting them, or to impersonate them.
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