You have probably heard about the Equifax security breach potentially affecting 143 million consumers. The cyber breach is potentially affecting nearly half of the nation’s population and is of the largest electronic data compromises in U.S. history. For further information about the security breach, please refer to reporting from the New York Times and Market Watch.
What Should I Do?
Equifax has created a website to help consumers determine whether their data was at risk. If you haven’t already done so, you can click here to see if your information was compromised and enroll in the free (1 year) credit monitoring. If you check Equifax’s site to see if your data was stolen, you waive your rights to sue Equifax or be part of a class action suit.
If you enroll in the free credit monitoring, you will receive a date on the web page. Put this date on your calendar. On or after that date, you will have to click here to continue the enrollment process. Your monitoring will cease unless you return to the site and renew the enrollment.
Additional Protection
The credit monitoring is just the one step in protecting yourself, only notifying you of suspicious activity. It does not protect you in any other way.
Because credit card information and bank account information were part of the breach, you should monitor your accounts for any suspect transactions. If you see anything questionable, you should immediately contact your bank or credit card company.
Make a habit of checking your bank and credit card information routinely.  Even if things looks good now, hackers are patient and bide their time before exploiting stolen information.