Oh, the irony! Identity theft protection service LifeLock has exposed millions of their customers’ email addresses. And according to Krebs on Security, the exploitable vulnerability was so basic that it seems “that whoever put it together lacked a basic understanding of Web site authentication and security”!

Following the revelations in the past week that political data analysis outfit Cambridge Analytica somehow managed to harvest the private data of more than 50 million Facebook users, and without the users being alerted, there have been increasing calls for Facebook users to leave Facebook for more secure climes.

Last week we started hearing about the Equifax data breach, although Equifax had actually known about the data breach at least a month earlier. (The full text of the Equifax statement about the cybersecurity data breach is reprinted below.) The most stunning thing about this breach is the breadth of it: the Personally Identifiable Information (PII), including names, social security numbers, and driver’s license numbers of 143 million U.S. citizens were exposed in this breach. Here is what you need to do, right now, to protect yourself.

Yahoo today released a statement indicating that a data breach that occurred in 2014 may be the most massive breach yet. Moreover, Yahoo is claiming that they believe that the 2014 breach was “state-sponsored”.

Now here’s a novel idea: how about if your Internet service (ISP), telecom, or broadband provider had to get your permission before they could sell your information and data to third-parties? That’s just what FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is proposing (full text of proposal below). What, you thought it was already that way? Think again, and the Internet, broadband and telecom providers are fighting it.

Experian, that keeper of your credit information and reputation, has been hacked, and the hackers got away with the personally identifiable information (PII) of 15 million T-Mobile customers and applicants.

As we told our readers last month, the ‘have an affair and cheat on your spouse’ website Ashley Madison was hacked, and information on their “37,765,000 anonymous users” was grabbed by the hackers, who call themselves The Impact Team. Now the Impact Team has dumped and revealed all of the data online, and many people are worrying “Is my email address in the Ashley Madison data?”

Last month the U.S. Justice department announced the takedown of the Darkode (get it? DarkCode – Dark Code?) international cybercrime ring, which the DOJ called one of the “gravest threats” to the security of online data. But what exactly does that mean to you, the average user sitting at home behind your computer?

With massive security data breaches happening more and more frequently, there is almost no way to avoid your own personal data being compromised. But what is the likelihood that your compromised data will actually be used for identity theft, fraud, or financial theft? Here’s how it breaks down.

Some are calling it Ubergate. Still others call it the reason they will no longer use the Uber service (fortunately there are alternatives to Uber, like Lyft in the U.S., and Hailo in the UK and Ireland). First there was Uber’s ‘Rides of Glory’ (i.e. rides of shame), then came the alleged threat of an “opposition research plan” against journalists to spend $1 million to dig up information on “your personal lives, your families.” And thus #Ubergate was born.

A recent rebroadcast on 60 Minutes about data brokers raises an interesting question: is dating site OK Cupid selling your answers to their questions, along with enough information to personally identify you, such as your IP address?

Yesterday we told you about how Microsoft is one of several companies who are encrypting their services and hardening their systems against the prying of nosy agencies like the NSA. Now Microsoft is fighting a Federal court order that they turn over the data for a user’s email account whose email data resides on a server outside of the U.S. (in Ireland, to be specific).

Verizon Wireless has announced that it will be adding cookies to the web browser of anyone who visits the Verizon Wireless website, and then Verizon will track you across the web, and sell the data it collects on you to marketers. What’s more, they are selling the data to marketers to whom they are giving marketing access to your Verizon Wireless device!

Turns out there is another reason for rejecting all those insidious game invitations from smartphone apps and their Facebook counterparts: the New York Times has revealed today that the NSA and its British counterpart, GCHQ, are mining the data that your smartphone apps are generating, from location data, to contact lists, to phone logs and even the data embedded in images. Dubbed the “Mobile Surge” by the Brits, the intelligence community is giddy with glee over the trove of data served up by mobile apps.

In his speech regarding changes to the NSA’s Section 215 phone metadata collection and surveillance program, President Barack Obama stated outright, “I am ordering a transition that will end the section 215 bulk metadata program as it currently exists.” During his speech (full transcript below), President Obama also announced that the federal government will need to go to the the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) every time that they want to search data, rather than relying on previous orders.