Maybe you’ve heard this advice before: use a unique password for every website and app.
Why though?
When you use the same password across many different sites, your accounts are only as secure as the least secure account.
Say you use the same password for your bank as you do for a website with a quiz that tells you what kind of dog breed you are. Now the security of your bank account and all your money is relying on the security of what dog am I dot com.
Not a great idea.
We’re proud to introduce our new threat detection system.
Traditional account security systems monitor for attacks within a company’s own systems. Unauthorized accesses, suspicious activity — concerning events that happen on the company’s servers. We’ve deployed best-in-class defense systems like that from the beginning.
Our new system defends against attacks before they reach our servers.
Our system patrols the dark web for third-party data breaches. User data from these breaches are assembled into lists that are bought and sold by bad actors. We monitor these lists for credentials that match the login credentials of US Mobile customer accounts, in case anyone uses the same password at US Mobile as they do at a company that got hacked.
US Mobile does not know or keep a copy of your password. Using best-in-class security practices, we store a scrambled reference to your password that can’t be unscrambled by us or anyone else. This unique reference value, not the password, is matched to leaked passwords. Using the reference value as a password would be like trying to unlock a bank vault using a fish — good luck!
When a match is found, we’ll alert you right away, giving you immediate actions you can take to secure your account.
What you can do now.
A single easy action you can take to defend your US Mobile account (and any other account that offers it) is to enable two-factor authentication (2FA). It takes a couple of minutes and adds a quick extra step at login, but does a lot to increase your account security.
With 2FA enabled, bad actors can’t access your account even if they have your password.
Speaking of passwords, how do you use a unique password for each site without losing track? Sounds impossible! The easiest way to do that is with a password manager. Most browsers and phones have them built in now. A little while back, we put together a list of some of our favorites. It’s a small adjustment that will finally solve the “wait, what was this password” problem and will go a very long way in defending you, your information, your mobile lines, and your money.
I did not sign up for you. I had numerous emails this morning and when I was checking my bank account you have been taking money out. How did this happen??
if your credit card is being charged without your knowledge, than your card was stolen. Generally, in such cases I’d recommend reaching out to the bank, reporting it and disputing unrecognized charges there.