Last Thursday, 143 million Americans were impacted by the massive Equifax hack which exposed everything from Social Security numbers to birth dates, addresses and even driver's license numbers. And experts are now urging us: If you aren’t worried, you should be…and no one is repsonsible for protecting your now-vulnerable data but you.
Karl Volkman, cyber secuirty expert and CTO of SRV Network, Inc. says, “You can’t rest on your laurels and expect that law enforcement officials are going to clean up this mess. There are several things you must do right away to protect yourself and your identity.”
Volkman says Americans need to:
First, sign up for credit file monitoring and identity theft protection. “Equifax is providing a free year of this monitoring as part of their plan to help protect Americans from the far-reaching impact of this breach. Go to TrustedID Premier to sign up.”
Get fraud alerts. “You need to set up accounts with the three major credit reporting agencies in order to be alerted if anyone tries to set up a credit card in your name.”
Consider a credit freeze. “This will prevent a thief from being able to walk into the mall and open a credit card in your name. When the clerk tries to create a card in your name, they will discover that your credit has been frozen and the thief will be turned away.”
Check your credit reports and stay on top of them. “You need to know what your current credit report looks like so that you will be able to notice any changes that occur as a result of your data being hacked.”
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