There has been a lot in the news lately about a huge security breach that happened at credit reporting agency Equifax. In fact, the odds are good your identity has been compromised since there were 143 million people affected. So what should you do to give yourself the best chance of protection?
What Happened?
The breach started in mid-May of this year and lasted through July. Of course, we consumers did not find out about it until this month, which to me is criminal, but I digress. The hackers got names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and in certain cases, driver’s license numbers. Scarier is that 209,000 people had credit card information stolen.
How Do I Know If Hackers Have My Personal Info?
How can you find out if you are among this esteemed group of victims? Follow this link to find out if your information was compromised.
Incidentally, when I tried it with my personal information, it showed I was impacted by the breach. As I followed this story since it started, there has been a lot of speculation about whether or not the page to identify if you were hacked or not was accurate. I am going to assume for now that it is correct. Equifax is offering a year of free credit monitoring if you register by November 21, 2017. If the link above shows you were impacted, you can sign up on that same page. It is just my opinion, but I believe Equifax should have to offer credit monitoring services for much longer than a year.
What Can I Do To Protect Myself?
Here are some things that might be helpful in protecting yourself:
Monitor your credit card statements and bank accounts very closely and very often. This can all be done online. If fact, I get an email every morning…