Most likely about half of us has had our personal information, SSN, DOB, stolen from Equifax. The Equifax (EFX) execs sold stock before releasing the news.

If you've ever had a loan or credit card of any sort, you're on file there.

"The potential for harm in the breach of a data broker is extraordinary, in this case potentially leaving 143 million people vulnerable to identity theft, scams, stolen property and accounts and other problems."

http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/349869-five-questions-about-the-massive-equifax-breach

Already had all that info stolen by the Chinese government so I have at least 10 years of my families personal info being monitored

Please note that there have been concerns raised over the TOS (terms of service) for using the provided service to check if you were among the compromised.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amph...-you-check-equifaxs-data-breach-website/

Edit: I see Equifax has responded to the concerns. Be your own judge.

My sister worked for them for 11 years. They moved a great deal of their operations over seas decades ago. I wonder how much of their IT operations are over seas or outsourced to companies with little oversight or concern for data security. I would like to see a criminal negligence investigation done. The CEO said he was sorry, so I guess that means he is off the hook.


https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2017/09/equifax-data-breach-what-do

Some of the comments are very interesting.

I think it's the credit monitoring that the arbitration agreement applies to, but I could be wrong. Checking your name is a good idea. I'm not affected but my wife was. Takes a few days to get the invitation to the monitoring. My problem is that the terms of service read like a sales pitch! More like a free demo than an apology and trying to fix anything.

Freeze your credit by calling the three Credit agencies. You'll need to pay a fee and create a pin number for security. It's only a hassle to lift the freeze for credit approvals, but it will prevent bad guys from opening credit cards in you name, or worse.

The FTC has a list of what steps may be helpful.

https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/blog/2017/09/equifax-data-breach-what-do

TOS? lol!
These companies hold the credit data of virtually everyone hostage didn't you know? There is no TOS.

You can check here to see if your one of the 143 million with compromised personal information:

https://trustedidpremier.com/eligibility/eligibility.html

Well now... Someone has made it possible to sue Equifax in small claims court using a bot to prepare all the forms:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/new-website-lets-automatically-sue-equifax-click-214730288.html

And here's the chatbot website:
https://donotpay-search-master.herokuapp.com


I'm not a believer in lawsuits, but I found this interesting. Oh, and apparently my information has been impacted.

CISO of Equafax

Maulding’s education credentials include a bachelor’s degree in music composition (magna cum laude) and a Master of Fine Arts degree in music composition (summa cum laude), both from the University of Georgia.

https://www.hollywoodlanews.com/equifax-chief-security-officer/

After going through the OPM breach, yahoo mail breach, and now this .... i figure it's only a matter of time before my identity gets stolen so I made sure our credit is frozen. Freezing your credit file doesn't affect your credit rating. You can still get a replacement credit card when you need one without having to unfreeze your credit. You will need to freeze your credit at all 3 credit reporting bureaus. Freezing your credit doesn't affect the use of your credit card by you.

For those of you that would be too inconvenienced by freezing your credit (because you take out new apartment leases every year, car loans or your job involves frequent credit checks, etc) then you can place a credit alert instead on your credit file. If you place a credit alert with one of the three credit reporting bureaus, that credit bureau will automatically forward your credit alert to the other two bureaus. Credit alerts however are good for only 3 months . So every 90 days you must place another one. It's very easy to do online and takes very little of your time.

Use the link below to learn more and it also gives you the links to all 3 credit bureaus to easily set it up. I'm going to keep my credit frozen as much as possible for the remainder of my life on the planet. If you're married check with your spouse to have theirs frozen as well.

http://clark.com/personal-finance-credit/credit-freeze-and-thaw-guide/#disqus_thread

FAQ's about credit freezes, et

https://www.doj.nh.gov/consumer/identity-theft/credit-freeze-faq.htm

Well, isn't that interesting. Well, she can teach music in the federal penitentiary for the next 20 years then.

I'm sure it doesn't take much of a technical education to outsource IT data security operations.

Being #%&*$# at your job doesn't put you in prison. She might be sued into the dirt, but jail? I doubt it.

Just tried doing a credit freeze on the Equifax site. It stated they were sorry, put they were unable to complete the request at this time. Probably getting overloaded right now. I wonder how long the wait times are for calling them ?

Considering the type of vital financial information that Equifax has, I'm surprised it took hackers this long to breach their system.

If 143 million people call for credit freezes, isn't that going to have a rather large effect on things ?

Its more than just credit. Someone who has your OL number, ssn, dob, your address history, they can become you.

Haven't checked the news about this, what does the music degree have to do with her going to jail? Did she leak the data?

Being the head of a security department doesn't make her criminally responsible for a data breach unless she facilitated the breach deliberately.

Unprofessional, definitely, but corporations are full of stupid idiots in positions they should not be in. 99% of corporations have idiots in charge of their IT departments.

I know, I am over reacting on the jail thing. I did IT work for decades. I saw my fair share of incompetent people in high levels of management. I assume that any negligence found would be a civil case.