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Tuesday, September 12th, 2017

Equifax Breach: How to check and protect your credit score

Author:     Karen Hap
Source:     Quartz
Publication Date:     September 08, 2017
 Link: Equifax Breach: How to check and protect your credit score
Stephan:   With the storms the Equifax story has passed off stage. The media can only do two stories in a cycle. This didn't make the cut. But that doesn't mean it is any less important, although less visual. The consequences of this breach could get very up close and personal. Here's what to do.

Equifax Building
Credit: Quartz

Yesterday (Sept. 7) Equifax, one of the three major US credit bureaus, reported a security breach that may have compromised 143 million customers‘ personal data, including Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver’s license numbers. Equifax found out about the hack on July 29, according to the company, despite only announcing it yesterday. The incident is one of the largest and most threatening cyberattacks that has occurred in recent years and is the third major attack on the company since 2015.

If you have a credit report, there’s a higher-than-50% chance that your data has been affected, Pamela Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research group, told the New York Times.

Here are some steps you can take to protect your credit score.

To check whether you’ve been affected:

1. Check your credit report

Check your credit report with Equifax, as well as Experian and TransUnion, for unauthorized activity. Go to creditreport.com for a free annual report. You may not see suspicious activity yet, given that it’s still in the early […]

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