{"id":2567,"date":"2017-09-11T09:16:52","date_gmt":"2017-09-11T16:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/?p=2567"},"modified":"2023-12-18T07:28:59","modified_gmt":"2023-12-18T15:28:59","slug":"what-you-need-to-know-about-the-summer-2017-equifax-data-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/computertechsreno.com\/tips\/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-summer-2017-equifax-data-breach\/","title":{"rendered":"What you need to know about the Summer 2017 Equifax data breach"},"content":{"rendered":"

Updated 9\/13\/17 to include information from Consumer Reports. Updated 10\/5\/17 with additional resources and clarifications:<\/em><\/p>\n

Equifax, one of the large credit reporting agencies in the U.S. recently announced<\/a> a data breach that may affect over 143<\/del>\u00a0145 million Americans. In case you’re not familiar with the population of the United States, there’s currently about 250 million Americans over the age of 18. Initial reports indicate that exposed data may include\u00a0names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver\u2019s license numbers. Note that Equifax DOES NOT have access to passwords to your financial accounts.<\/p>\n

The Federal Trade Commission posted a helpful article with suggestions on what you can do to help protect your financial data<\/a> now that the data breach has come to light. However, contrary to Equifax’s advice that includes entering your personal information to check to see if you’ve been affected by the breach and sign up for their free credit monitoring service (do you feel comfortable about entering your information on a website operated by a company that didn’t keep your information secure in the first place?) – security researcher Brian Krebs recommends placing a credit freeze on your file<\/a>, and further explains how to do it in this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Additional information from the FTC includes:<\/p>\n