Equifax web snafu another reminder to protect your credit info
Equifax web snafu another reminder to protect your credit info:- News broke Thursday that a link on the Equifax website redirected some users to a third-party site Equifax uses to collect website performance data. That site encouraged visitors to download malware. Equifax says it has taken the web page offline to conduct further analysis and also removed the vendor’s code from its web page.
The incident is a reminder that the 145.5 million consumers potentially affected by the massive breach at the credit reporting company should take action to protect their personal data.
If you worry your information might be involved, here are some steps you can take.
First, you can go to the website Equifax has set up to check if your information was stolen. It’s available at www.trustedidpremier.com. There’s also a number, 866-447-7559.
If your personal information was part of the breach, one of the first things victims are normally told to do is to go to a credit-reporting company and request their records to make sure that there are no unauthorized accounts or charges on their existing accounts.
Equifax says it was not breached again, but vendor on site served ‘malicious content’ This time around, experts suggest checking with Equifax rivals, Experian and TransUnion.
While there is no evidence of unauthorized activity in the Equifax credit reporting databases, the company said that there was potential unauthorized access to information it had stored from mid-May through July 2017. The information included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some cases, driver’s license numbers.
Experts say the best defense is to freeze your credit. Detailed instructions are available here.
The hackers also got access to credit card numbers for roughly 209,000 consumers, plus certain dispute documents with personal identifying information for approximately 182,000 consumers, Equifax said.
In the wake of the breach, experts have these suggestions for staying secure:
BE EXTRA CAREFUL ABOUT EMAILS AND LINKS
Users should avoid clicking on links or downloading attachments from suspicious emails that claim to be updates from Equifax or connected to the breach.
Source:- https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/news/2017/09/07/what-do-if-youre-one-44-americans-hit-equifax-breach/644406001/
