Washington Post [gift article]: “After Change Healthcare, a technology company owned by UnitedHealth Group, reported a giant ransomware attack, you may have received a letter by mail letting you know your data has been compromised. But you get a lot of random stuff in the mail, too. How can you determine if the letter is legitimate, and what will it take to protect your accounts and identity? Large-scale data breaches happen so frequently that it can be tough to keep track. In the first half of 2024, cyberattacks increased 14 percent compared with the same period last year, according to the nonprofit Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC). In March, consumers learned a hack at a third-party company exposed Amex account information. A few weeks later, data from millions of AT&T accounts popped up online. And in August, a data broker lost control of a massive dataset that contained Social Security numbers. Some tech critics and cybersecurity experts accuse companies of playing fast and loose with people’s data — collecting too much and failing to properly secure it. Some companies even make a business model out of collecting and combining giant datasets, including profiles of individual people. Each data breach, meanwhile, puts victims at risk of identity theft, which can be a costly and frustrating problem to untangle…”