Employees of any company don’t deserve to have their information stolen. Unfortunately, 40,000 Cox Communications (Cox) employees are facing this now. The company has reported that it’s investigating a possible breach after data of some of its employees was found offered up for sale on the Dark Web.
It’s unclear how it happened and so far, the company has not indicated which employees. However, for the time being all employees of Cox should be extra cautious about phishing. With 
the information that was taken, it’s likely some targeted email and text messages will arrive. The information that the company knows was stolen includes email addresses, names, and phone numbers. There was indication that other information was accessed as well.
Phishing is the primary way intrusions occur. Don’t click on unsolicited links, even if you know the sender. Often hackers will pretend to be one of your contacts in an effort to trick you into thinking the link is safe. After all, we are more likely to click something if it comes from a friend or contact.
In addition, some phishing messages will attempt to scare you into clicking. For example, they may say that a purchase was made on your iTunes account that you know you didn’t make. Before clicking on anything sent in the message, don’t panic. Take a close look at it. If it has typos or incorrect grammar, it is very likely fake. In addition, if there is a currency figure in it, make sure it’s formatted correctly. For example, if it has a comma where a period should be, it’s probably phishing.
If you cannot confirm it is a real message, use a separate method to contact the sender, such as looking for a phone number on the website directly or send a new email message to your contact. Don’t reply or use contact details in the message. They are often fake.
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