Equifax Breach 101
Just when you were getting all excited because your credit score went up, THIS happened: 143 million Americans were impacted by a significant data breach at Equifax, which is one of the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies, says Seena Gressin, an attorney with the Division of Consumer & Business Education with the United States Federal Trade Commission (the FTC). The data that was leaked included:
- Names
- Social Security Numbers (SSNs)
- Birth dates
- Addresses
- Driver’s license numbers
- Credit card numbers
- Credit card dispute documents
It’s not the biggest data breach in recent cyber-history (that distinction goes to Yahoo), but it might feel to you like the most terrifying because:
- Equifax has your financial information, including your entire credit history, a record of every late payment you’ve ever made, every credit card account you’ve ever held, every car lease, every mortgage, every loan for which you’ve applied, the details of every dispute you’ve ever had with a lender, and any claims, liens, or judgments against you.
- As a storehouse of Americans’ financial and credit history, Equifax also holds a lot of very personal information that identifies you as you, including your full name, any aliases, your Social Security Number, your birthday, and potentially your driver’s license number.
- You didn’t even GIVE your information to Equifax, and yet they have it! Equifax receives your information from credit card companies, banks, and other lenders (Equifax compiles the information to come up with a credit rating for you).
- The information Equifax has about you can be used not only in deciding whether to give you a loan. Your credit report is one of the most essential pieces of a background check. If the info is wrong and to your detriment, it could mean that you don’t get the job or the apartment you want.
- Equifax is one of three major credit bureaus that compiles and warehouses this information. The other two, Experian and TransUnion, have not been hacked. “Yet,” some say, and they don’t mean to sound paranoid, just realistic.
- Although this event brings up legitimate concerns about privacy, identity theft, and identity theft protection, you cannot opt out of this information-compiling system unless you never want to lease a car, rent an apartment, and possibly get another job.
But try to remain calm. You’ve got this, especially now that you’ve got this handy outline of what you can do going forward to respond to this particular event, as well as a primer on how to prevent identity theft and protect your data and your money from wannabe thieves.
from Reader's Digest http://ift.tt/2xkk4H4
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق