While we Americans focus on "door buster" holiday shopping specials, and creative uses for turkey leftovers, our cousins in England are coming to terms with a potentially very serious data breach. Two computer disks containing records for families of children receiving government benefits (not a welfare program but a small subsidy for parents) have gone missing in transit from one government office to another. Some 25 million individuals' records are potentially at risk, containing names, addresses, national insurance number and banking details. Some government officials have resigned in disgrace while others scramble to make political gold out of the problem. And, as you might expect, advertising for identity theft insurance is on the rise.
The first phishing email scams based upon this crisis have also cropped up. The cybercriminals will always use the latest social or natural crisis to work upon our emotions, in order to gain our trust and our private information. In California, after our wild fires, there were phishing emails on behalf of the "fire victims" or to donate to the Red Cross. It's important to be wary of unsolicited emails at all times, and even more necessary to be suspicious during times of high stress or worry.
To read more about the events in England, here's a BBC story.