On Friday, Epsilon, the world's largest permission-based email service, released a statement reporting an unauthorized entry in its clients' customer database. For the most part, only emails were exposed — no passwords or other personal information. However, Epsilon's client list is huge. The electronic direct marketing outfit sends 40 billion emails annually and counts more than 2,500 clients, including seven of the Fortune 10, to build and host their customer databases, according to Security Week.

Many have already received an email from one or more of the companies affected — whether a major bank, travel or retail site or even TiVo — alerting customers that an email was exposed, while noting other information such as passwords remain safe.

As always, the Office of Information Technology urges close scrutiny of email messages. As a result of this recent compromise, spam messages may appear to be from a trusted company. 

OIT recommends that users bookmark financial institutions, store accounts, the OIT password change page, Techworks, Banner and any other websites that have critical account information.

Emails from Georgia Tech email addresses that ask for your account information or password are never legitimate. Any user who receives such an email should not click on the link or respond. To report any inappropriate activity, visit http://web-archive.oit.gatech.edu/information_security/report_incidents.