Taken from PC World Magazine, October 2011 Edition

2011 has been the year of the data breach, and data breaches are extremely common.  And once your personal information is out there, it’s exposed for good.  You can take a few steps to reduce the potential for damage, however.

1) Change your passwords: Your very first step should be to make a new password for your account on the affected site.  If you used the same login information for any other websites, be sure to change your password on those sites too.

2) Watch for phishing attempts and malicious email: If your email address is exposed in a data breach, scammers, spammers, and malware authors may try to send malicious messages to you (well, more than usual, anyway), so you might see a spike in spam.  As always, look out for any suspicious email.

3) Look for suspicious snail mail: If street addresses were compromised in a hack, cybercriminals may attempt to send you scam mail via the postal service.  Keep your guard up.  Be wary of anything you receive in the mail that asks for money or personal information.

4) Watch for financial statments: Even if your information wasn’t compromised in a major data breach, criminals can still get at your credit card and bank account information through a malware infection on your PC, a compromised ATM or credit card payment terminal, lost or improperly discarded documents that contain sensitive information, or even an unscrupulous employee at a fancy restaurant.

5) Put a fraud alert on your credit report: Here’s another must if you’re a data-breach victim.  A fraud alert tells the major credit agencies that your identity may have been stolen, and that they should be on guard for anything suspicious, such as new credit or bank accounts opened under your name.