Dammit… I HATE hackers…
Xxxxxx detected a match to your Social Security Number.
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Personal information exposed on the dark web does not necessarily mean your info has been used fraudulently. We recommend you take the following proactive steps to prevent any potential risk:
- Place a fraud alert on your credit file as soon as possible at Experian.com/fraud or by calling 1-888-397-3742.
- Place a freeze on your credit file at all three credit bureaus—Experian®, TransUnion® & Equifax®.
- Review your credit report from all three bureaus and report any activity you don’t recognize. Request a copy of your latest credit reports by visiting AnnualCreditReport.com.
- Review resources available at the Social Security Administration online by visiting SSA.Gov/Fraud.
- Monitor your credit card and bank accounts for suspicious transactions and notify the financial institution if you notice anything suspicious.
Note: Large data breaches often lead to multiple alerts of exposed personal information, as information is exposed in a variety of combinations.
I have noted ‘fake’ invoices in the last couple of days, usually trying to hit Paypal. But I don’t have any credit card attached to that and the account it is tied to is locked down.
Folks, jumping through the hoops is a PITA and takes about a half hour, but if it saves you from losing $$$ it is well worth it!
One reminder- If you put credit freezes on, you MUST take them off if you are doing something like buying a house or car, or anything requiring credit. Otherwise, nobody can see your credit.
YMMV, IANAL, I didn’t stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night, but I’m also not going to take chances….
SAVE YOUR PIN when you freeze your credit.
I’ve had my credit frozen since 2015 and have received one or two apology letters every year from banks requesting that I thaw my credit so they can process the loan request made by somebody else. Excellent info is available in theses articles AND the comments:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/credit-freeze/
I’ve had to thaw my credit 2 or 3 times since 2015 for loans or background checks. It’s painless if you have your PIN, and I was able to define a brief window each time before the freeze was automatically restored.
I froze mine a long time ago. The two or three times I’ve had to thaw them, which is not terribly onerous, was worth it. When my mom was sick, I froze hers too which I am sure saved us a lot of heartache.
I’ve gotten two or three notifications of data breaches-one from a bank and a couple from medical billing providers but was able to ignore them.
I did see something a few weeks ago where most of the SSNs in the US were stolen from our govt.
You get a free report yearly so I recommend that anyone get a copy of their credit report from one of the three agency’s every 4 months to see what’s being reported and get a heads up on any nefarious acts.
This breach was from a company that provided background checks. Like most, it was poorly operated with zero security. Unlike most, it had up to 30 years of previous addresses that it leaked, along with DOB, SSN, and AKA, so all prime material for ID theft.
I froze all three credit reports ASAP.
Ever since the 2015 OPM data breach, and sporadically previously, I’ve had my credit info locked down. I’ve only needed to unlock a few times (home and car loans).
And today I saw that an AI specializing in psychological treatment had 5Tb of data online and NOT password-protected.
It’s not so much the hackers as the terrible It Admin procedures and gullible Users. Hackers have to work hard for the info, but terrible security practices and non-compliant users only makes information theft easier. And yes, I’ve been Admin, Network and Cybersecurity, so I can speak from experience.
I lost the PIN from one of the freezes, but it hasn’t been necessary to unfreeze it. I did a search for breaches after the SSN leak broke, and to my bemusement, the only place that got exposed was from the Malwarebytes company. I guess a cyber-protection company would be a major target, but arggh.
The good news is that the breach is old enough that the leaked data is obsolete. (I don’t use Windows any more, so that’s a help…)
Thank goodness the government didn’t lie and our Social Security numbers didn’t become default ID numbers required for everything, especially financial transactions. LOL. Government is the greatest evil ever created by man.
I have been hit with purchase notifications, your order is confirmed, urgent invoice, payment authorization approved, etc, etc…for the last few months or so. I used to get about one a month, but 13 are currently in my spam folder from the past 30 days. As a matter of due diligence I’m checking my credit reports and freezing ’em.
I keep getting emails supposedly from my email provider telling me I Need To Do [something] Or Else. It usually goes to a google site then to places on the web I don’t want to go.
Looking at the headers is instructive, but getting these a few times a week is annoying.
All- Glad I’m NOT the only paranoid one out there…sigh
Looking at some of the comments makes me feel good about my freeze but I want to elaborate:
1. Freezes are FREE since Congress decreed it. They PREVENT “hard” credit lookups such as those required for someone to get a loan using your stolen identity.
2. Credit companies try to muddy the waters by offering paid “credit shields” or similar. NO. Only the credit companies benefit from that. The laws around actual freezes are much more stringent and beneficial to you than any of the paid services. It is the difference between having your goodies in a locked vault compared to an open closet that only occasionally comes into view of a security camera.
3. The free credit checks will tell you if you failed to intercept an identity thief – but by that time you’ll be wishing you had already put a freeze in place.
4. I had my identity stolen by a convicted felon before my 2015 freeze. All of a sudden my background checks failed during gun purchases and my dentist notified me of a drastic change to payment arrangements. I carried an “I am not the felon you think I am” letter from the State Police for several years, presented it during every gun purchase and interaction with law enforcement, and still have a copy where I can find it.
5. It is a real wake-up call when you get a letter from a bank asking you to lift your freeze and calling them to learn that the loan “I” requested was for beachfront property in a different time zone.
If I’ve confused anyone here please accept my apologies. All I know was learned from Krebs and his commenters here:
https://krebsonsecurity.com/tag/credit-freeze/
and that knowledge paid off in spades since 2015.
This is not going to get better. Please take the steps to protect yourself and your loved ones. My niece lifted the freeze my sister set up in some sort of rebellion against authority during college and is still cleaning up the mess a year later with no end in sight.
In my years of selling cars I must have looked at 1,000 credit reports. Often, there were errors. We were not “allowed” to show a customer their credit report per the agencies.
Pity the customer. Already stressed by the car buying process they got a shot to the gut learning their credit was compromised.
My credit report has been frozen for decades.About once a year something will slip through and I will need to deal with it.
AL- Thanks!
WSF- Concur.
I’m not doing anything about this.
What’s the point?
WHY did our government GIVE this data away to a third party?
Nothing is going to protect you, unless you spend money, well I ain’t spending money because the government fucked up.
Anything happens, I’ll just refuse to pay it and if they don’t like that, we’ll they can see me in court. Where I will sue THEM for giving out credit when they know all of the data has been stolen.