ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (WHAT THE TECH?) — AT&T is the latest company dealing with a leak of customers’ private information.

As data leaks become more frequent, you’re probably wondering what you can do, as a consumer, to protect yourself.

Troy Hunt is one of the most respected names when it comes to privacy, passwords, and data leaks. From his home in Australia, Hunt told us AT&T’s data leak which included social security numbers, is more disturbing than many other data leaks. Then we’ve got names, phone numbers, physical addresses. That’s really all of the building blocks for theft, unfortunately.

“We’re seeing headlines that it’s on the dark web. It’s not the dark web. It’s the clear web. It is somewhere you go on your normal browser. There will be thousands if not tens of thousands of people who now have all of this data,” Hunt said.

And there’s not much victims can do about it now.

“We cannot go and change our date of birth, changing a social security number is an absolute nightmare. So we have to work on the fact that the data is out there and we’re never going to get it back,” Hunt said.

Hunt adds most people don’t take steps to protect their data until they’re a victim. And it’s safe to say everyone has been in a data leak, so taking steps now is critical.

Hunt says Identity theft and fraud protection is a good step toward protecting your privacy. These are about $100 a year.

And good, strong, unique passwords for each account help too.

AT&T is contacting all current and former customers whose information was included in the leak. It also reset the passcodes of those accounts.

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