Cooks said his identity was stolen after someone broke into his home, took pages of documents and his cellphone. Equipped with his phone, it allowed the person to gain access to his banking information and all his passwords.

We asked local cybersecurity expert Tim Howard to prioritize the "must-do" list to protect yourself.

Federal health officials have notified Congress of a data breach that could involve the information of more than 100,000 people.

More than a decade of personal data was stolen from Pearland ISD, according to a letter that went out to parents, staff and students in the district last week.

Personal information for several Memorial Hermann patients was leaked after a contracted vendor had a security breach, according to the health care system.

HOUSTON – The information of Texas drivers may have been exposed during a breach, according to database company Vertafore. The files included driver information for licenses issued before February 2019. That information contained Texas driver license numbers, names, dates of birth, addresses and vehicle registration histories, the company said. The breach was also reported to the Texas Attorney General, Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and U.S. federal law enforcement. The Texas Department of Public Safety released the following statement regarding the incident:"There has been no breach of the Texas Driver License System or any other DPS database.

HOUSTON – Texas Children’s Hospital is notifying its patients of a data security incident involving one of its vendors, the hospital announced in a release Monday. Blackbaud said it has no reason to believe the attackers have another copy of the hospital’s database or released the data publicly. As soon as Texas Children’s Hospital was notified, they mailed its patients who were affected by the security incident. Texas Children’s investigation determined that certain free text fields in the database may have contained certain patients' names, dates of birth, department(s) of service, treating physician, and/or limited clinical information. Importantly, no patients' Social Security Numbers or financial records were involved in this incident," according to a release by the hospital.

NEW YORK – Wednesday is the deadline to seek cash payments and claim free services as part of Equifax's $700 million settlement over a massive data breach. Criminals can use those bits of personal information to commit identity theft. Regulators suggest that you save any documents related to your efforts to avoid or recover from identity theft. In fact, the company has insisted it hasn’t seen much of an increase in identity theft. But if someone becomes a victim, it’s difficult to say whether the identity theft happened because one breach or another — or some combination.