If 2FA is the answer, then get on that now!

That data breach at Ticketmaster may only be the beginning and heres who might be in danger:

The half-billion consumers whose personal data was possibly compromised by the recent data breach at Ticketmaster and the other 30 million consumer finance company Santander Consumer USA were more than enough to raise concerns.

But there could be additional threats and according to Wiredand others the Ticketmaster breach may just be the tip of the iceberg, thanks to where it and other large companies customer databases reside.

The widespread belief is that the Ticketmaster and Santander breaches are linked to attacks against cloud provider Snowflake. That might be ok if Snowflake only had Ticketmaster and Santander data to take care of, but it also reportedly holds many other large consumer brands and if the company is attacked again, all heck could break loose.

Snowflake has denied that its systems were directly breached. The company contends that the data theft resulted from attackers using compromised customer credentials.

Basically, Snowflake blames its data theft on poorly secured customer accounts such as accounts without two-factor authentication (2FA) a defense that mirrors what 23andMe used in its recent data breach.

Do you have an account with any of these other companies?

Ticketmaster and Santander customers are probably already scurrying to delete credit card numbers and change passwords, but those are only two of the major brands that Snowflake does business with.

Its quite possible that this could be a one- or two-time hit, but in addition to resetting credentials at Ticketmaster and Santander, any consumer who does business with any of the following Snowflake-related companies might want to take added precautions to secure their personal information:

• Neiman Marcus

• JetBlue

• Adobe

• AT&T

• Capital One

• Anheuser-Busch

• State Farm

• Mitsubishi

• Progressive

• Allstate

• Advance Auto

• DoorDash

• HP

• Mastercard

• Micron

• NBC Universal

• Nielsen

• PepsiCo

• Siemens

• Western Union

• Yamaha

Hundreds of data compromises

This list is just the heavy hitters, but given the fact that in the first quarter of 2024, there were more than 800 data compromises, this situation should be a reminder to everyone that no one is safe.

If Snowflake says that 2FA wouldve prevented its customers from taking a hit, then, by all means, make two-factor authentication part of your security set-up.

But, also as this reporter has found out setting your bank and charge account notification settings extremely low (like $1) to catch any misuse of your account credentials could save the day. In todays world better safe than sorry is a motto that has never been more accurate.