Equifax, one of the nation’s largest credit reporting agencies, announced yesterday that it suffered a major cybersecurity breach. The breach is currently estimated to affect ~143 million U.S. consumers – nearly half of the nation’s population. Massive is an understatement.
We encourage you to utilize Equifax’s free service to determine if you were impacted. Equifax has established a website, and is also offering free credit monitoring (regardless of whether your data was included in the breach). Here is the link to the website to check to find out if you were affected: Breach check
Once you complete the check, you will have the option to opt-in to their free credit monitoring service (TrustedID). You will notice that the enrollment will not start until next week. In the interim, we encourage you to closely monitor your accounts.
To further protect yourself, it may be worth considering placing a credit freeze on your credit records. A credit freeze is a tool that lets you restrict access to your credit report, making it more difficult for identity thieves to open new accounts in your name.
To establish a credit freeze, you need to visit each one of the three credit reporting agencies and follow the steps. For your convenience, the links are below:
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We will do our best to assist. You can also learn more about the breach here:
https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/frequently-asked-questions/