How to protect yourself from the Equifax Data Breach
Nearly half the US population has some form of ties with Equifax, one of the three main consumer credit reporting agencies in the USA. Due to the nature of their business (storing and reporting credit file data), Equifax may be recording your personal credit data even if you’ve never had any direct contact with their company.
Just last week, Equifax reported a security breach that may have exposed private information from your credit file. Since the breach, Equifax has taken action including ways or mitigating data loss and providing help and support for those that may be affected. We urge you to read their online report.
Here are a few items we recommend taking a look at:
1. Read Equifax’s FAQ and latest updates on the matter at https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com This will help answer some questions. Bookmark this site and check back frequently for the latest updates.
2. Enroll for Equifax’s free credit monitoring service to help mitigate any risk from fraudulent activity. In the event your information was compromised, it is best to have some game plan in place that can help protect and correct these issues.
3.Monitor your credit report regularly. There’s no better method of managing your finances and protecting your credit from unauthorized access then to keep a close eye on your financial accounts and credit report regularly. Use annualcreditreport.com to obtain your free credit report annually. We recommend pulling a new file every three months from one of the three bureaus and rotating them so that you have a fresh report every 90 days to take a look at.
Central Sunbelt provides free financial counseling services to all members at no cost. Some of these services including free credit report review, and some resources and counseling on combatting identity theft.
Nearly half the US population has some form of ties with Equifax, one of the three main consumer credit reporting agencies in the USA. Due to the nature of their business (storing and reporting credit file data), Equifax may be recording your personal credit data even if you’ve never had any direct contact with their company.
Just last week, Equifax reported a security breach that may have exposed private information from your credit file. Since the breach, Equifax has taken action including ways or mitigating data loss and providing help and support for those that may be affected. We urge you to read their online report.
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