Just received cool new suede Pumas from Zappos last week, and this week I received an email explaining that my account was breached.

Turns out that the popular online shoe and clothing retailer was attacked by cybercriminals who gained access to parts of the internal network through one of the servers in Kentucky. One Sunday, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Amazon-owned Zappos wrote on the company blog that 24+ million customers were affected, but critical credit card and other payment data was not affected or accessed. The hackers failed to get payment card numbers, because that data is encrypted, as required by the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

The company sent an email to every one of their customers explaining the situation including what information was stolen: Customer name, email address, billing and shipping addresses, phone number, the last four digits of customers’ credit card number, and/or cryptographically scrambled passwords.

Zappos took swift action by expiring and resetting passwords, and they set up a password change webpage for customers to create new ones. "We also recommend that you change your password on any other web site where you use the same or a similar password," the email sent to affected customers states.

As a result of stolen credentials, phishing attacks that try to steal sensitive information like social security numbers or lead you to a website that attempts to install a virus, are more likely. "As always, please remember that Zappos.com will never ask you for personal or account information in an e-mail," the blog statement says. "Please exercise caution if you receive any emails or phone calls that ask for personal information or direct you to a web site where you are asked to provide personal information."

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