#equifax
(Photo: Matt Campbell/epa-EFE)
What’s in your wallet?
Banks can’t become tech companies. They need to retain their positions as fortresses — both literally and figuratively — of people’s wealth and vital data. Outsourcing information to cloud computing companies, like Amazon Web Services in Capital One’s case, has to be rethought. Our view.Another view.
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Task for today:
This is not a political task, this is a personal safety task.
The Equifax leak affected more than half of all US adults. For anyone with a credit history, this means you were likely compromised.
Consumer safety groups are advising folks NOT to use the website that Equifax set up for people to check whether they were compromised. It’s insecure. And worse, the fraud monitoring they’re offering comes with a TOU that makes you agree not to be part of any class action against them. Don’t agree to that unless they change it!
What you SHOULD do:
–Freeze your credit without checking to see if you were affected by the Equifax leak. Go to each credit reporting agency (TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax) and follow their instructions to freeze your credit. It is very easy to do online or by phone.
Make sure that if you do this online that you use a secure connection (do not use an unsecured wireless connection)
Each credit reporting agency will give you a different PIN. Make sure to save them as they are not allowed to let anyone else with your personal info retrieve them.
The elderly are the most frequent victims of identity theft and credit fraud, and the least likely to be computer-savvy enough to do this on their own. If you have an elderly friend, neighbor, or relative who needs help doing this, please take the time to walk them through the process.
