INDIANAPOLIS— The Federal Trade Commission issued a warning this week regarding emails claiming your information is being sold on the dark web.
The emails may list the “stolen” information, like your Social Security number, date of birth, and driver’s license number.
The FTC says if you receive one of these emails, you need to take steps to help protect yourself against financial loss from identity theft.
“The agency is concerned because we’ve received reports of consumers receiving emails saying their personal information has been exposed on the dark web,” said Kelle Slaughter, the FTC’s Identity Theft Program Manager.
Slaughter said the emails could be legitimate.
“There are a lot of people who have signed up for monitoring services, and some services can detect things on the dark web and will send alerts to people,” said Slaughter.
However, the emails could also be a scam or contain phishing links that could compromise your personal information.
“These emails may contain links and people may be subject to click them which could download malware, and compromise personal information on their computers,” said Slaughter.
If you receive one of these dark web emails, do not click any of the links in the email.
“In fact, what you want to do is take steps as if this were a real warning to you,” said Slaughter. “You want to change your passwords to your emails and check your credit reports that nothing is on there that you didn’t already know about.”
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