As some of you may know, Equifax was breached through a vulnerability on their website sometime between mid-May and the end of July of this year.
This breach exposed personal information for an estimated 143 million people in the US, Canada and also the UK. By exploiting Equifax website’s vulnerability, the hackers were able to acquire names, social security numbers, birth dates, home addresses and even some drivers’ license information. In addition, credit card numbers for an estimated 209,000 consumers and certain dispute documents, which included personal identifying information, for approximately 182,000 consumers were accessed, according to the company.
If you were one of the fewer people whose credit card numbers or dispute documents were exposed, you will receive postal mail letting you know you were affected. Otherwise, you will need to use the Equifax website to find out if your data was exposed. The link to the website is: https://www.equifax.com/personal/?/ . If you enroll with Trusted ID through Equinox, it will provide you with a free one year subscription. Trusted ID is an identity protection company owned by Equifax. It is a multi-step process to enroll and could take up to week. It does not ask for a credit card number and it will not automatically renew after the free year.
Personally, I enrolled in Trusted ID. It is a free service to help protect me for a year. I will also be keeping a close eye on my credit report for the next few years looking for hard inquiries and unknown accounts.
Portions of this blog taken from cnet.com.
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