Security firm Stratfor, which was hit recently by a massive hack, said it will provide affected users with free access to identity theft protection from CSID.
In light of the breach, meanwhile, Stratfor said its Web site will remain offline for the time being while its investigation continues.
All Stratfor members will receive one year of ID theft protection from CSID. If you purchased a Stratfor membership with a credit card, you will receive an email with information about how to access CSID's services, Stratfor said.
"You can feel confident in disclosing information to CSID—it's the only identity protection company we are working with," Fred Burton, Stratfor's vice president of intelligence, said in a video message (below).
The company's Web site, meanwhile, which has been offline since the Christmas Eve attack, is still down. "We have also decided to delay the launching of our website until a thorough review and adjustment by outside experts can be completed," the company said on its Facebook page. "We expect this to take approximately a week, but it might take longer—please bear with us as we recover from this unfortunate event."
While the site is offline, Stratfor said it will send its geopolitical analysis to members via email.
"To say we wish this hadn't happened is a massive understatement," Stratfor said.
The hack was reportedly perpetrated by members of Anonymous, though some Anons have denied it.
In a Tuesday blog post from Identity Finder, the company said the data published by the hackers included 50,277 unique credit card numbers, of which 9,651 were not expired. More than 86,000 email addresses were accessed, as were 27,537 phone numbers. In addition, 44,188 encrypted passwords were compromised, of which 50 percent "could be easily cracked," Identity Finder said.
Aaron Titus, Identity Finder's privacy officer, said this is another example of why people should not use the same password across multiple Web sites.
"Passwords are a digital identity and password reuse is a serious problem that could lead toward identity fraud," Titus said in a statement. "The victims will have no way to know when an identity thief is reusing their email and password combination to attempt to log into their online bank, an online retailer where they have saved their credit card for future purchases, or other online accounts such as e-mail."
For more, see PCMag's Guide to Creating Strong Passwords.