Equifax and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

You may have heard buzz recently about a huge date breach a Equifax, one of the three big credit reporting agencies. One of the (many) frightening things about this incident is how many people don;t know they might be impacted. Even though you probably never interact with Equifax, there is a good chance they have a whole lot of your personal information, as your lenders, credit card companies, and even utility providers probably report it to them for the purpose of coming up with your credit score and report. Another of the frighting things is the information they took, which includes not only credit card information, but Social Security and driver's license numbers. You know, everything someone would need to buy your identity on the dark web. The attack may have impacted up to 143 million Americans.

The Times has a good article on it, that includes horrifying quotes like "This is about as bad as it gets" and “On a scale of 1 to 10 in terms of risk to consumers, this is a 10” and just to keep with the apocalyptic themes of 2017  “This is also a Homeland Security risk as enemy nation states build databases of Americans that they then use to get to their targets, for example a network operator at a power grid, or a defense contractor at a missile defense company.”

So that's cool. What can you do? You can start at www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/enroll and sign up for free identity theft protection. They'll monitor your credit report, and search suspicious sites for your social security number. This is great, but they're only offering a year of protection, and since your social security number and other information doesn't expire, it could very well be used later, after all the hullabaloo has passed and people aren't being as vigilant.

Going forward, you should get your credit reports every year. There is only one website authorized by the federal government to pull your report, and it's annualcreditreport.com. Once a year, you are entitled to a free copy of your three credit reports. Get all three as they may not match, and just review them to make sure everything looks right, and is a card you actually opened or a loan you actually applied for. You can also put a fraud alter on your file, which will require any lenders to take a few extra steps to verify anyone claiming to be you is, in fact, you. The alert is only active for 90 days, but there's no limit to the number of times you can renew it, and it's free. If you're a network operator at a power grid, or a defense contractor at a missile defense company I'm not sure what to tell you, but I would certainly hope your employer has a plan.

So take a deep breath, and don't panic. Take action to protect your identity and secure your online information, but don't freak out! You aren't liable for fraudulent activity, and you can be proactive in protecting yourself. Just remember that with everything being online now, monitoring your identity is just another routine, grown up part of taking care of your finances.