Equifax Security Breach - what you need to know

In case you've somehow missed it, Equifax (one of the three major credit bureaus in the U.S.) had a major breach involving financial information for "over 143 million people" which they reported September 7, 2017.

See: https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com

For further information about this, we recommend you read the following:

• https://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/06/how-i-learned-to-stop-worrying-and-embrace-the-security-freeze/
• https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/09/so-equifax-says-your-data-was-hacked-now-what/

The ArsTechnica article recommends signing up for Equifax' free TrustedID Premier credit protection service, which they will be offering - note that when you sign up you'll be notified of an enrollment date, as mentioned in the post. However, before doing so, please read and consider the Brian Krebs' article linked to at the bottom of this page.

There are other steps in the ArsTechnica post that make good sense. In particular, as also recommended by Brian Krebs (in the krebsonsecurity.com article linked to just above), you might want to put a security freeze on your account with each of the three major credit bureaus. Links for each are below:

• https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp
• https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze
• https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html

A larger discussion of the problems such a massive breach presents (and the fact that Equifax knew about it July 29th but reported nothing publicly until nearly six weeks later), and the many concerns raised by a company charged with securing our financial data but failing to do just that (and yet to which we are beholden and have no recourse against - unless you can live without ever needing or using credit), is far beyond the scope and nature of our blog here. However, as well as the ArsTechnica and Brian Krebs articles above, you might like to read the following:

• https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2017/09/08/equifax-highlighting-the-problems-with-social-security-numbers/
• https://www.cnet.com/how-to/equifax-breach-find-out-if-you-were-one-of-143-million-hacked/

as well as (definitely last but not least, instead being especially noteworthy)

• https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/equifax-breach-response-turns-dumpster-fire/