A reminder for anyone who hasn’t already done it, freeze your credit at all 3 credit agencies. Only unfreeze the 1 you need for the time period it needs to be unfrozen for, if applying for new credit. This should stop most identity theft related to the SSN leak.
This should be standard practice for everyone after the Equifax breach several years ago.
Of course if someone can take control of a person’s phone number, that’s essentially a new form of identity theft now that 2FA has turned our phones into our identity, whether we asked for it or not.
Many in the list, at the link above, are not a concern for financial fraud in your name. But, you might want to expand your list of companies you freeze your report with by a few more to gain some safety. My personal minimum list:
ChexSystems (used by many banks before opening new accounts)
Equifax
Experian
Innovis (sometimes referred to as the 4th major credit reporting agency)
LexisNexis (LexisNexis acquired SageStream; same services/types of customers as big 3)
Transunion
Seconding this. It's free to create accounts at the 3 agencies (Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian) and place an indefinite freeze until you need to apply for credit in the future.
Sometimes people sit on the data in these breaches for years before using it, after the dust has settled, assuming people have since let their guard down.
Unfortunately, it's also worth noting that you typically opt into allowing these agencies to sell your data during signup, so after be sure to comb through the privacy policies for opt-out links and submit requests to prevent the agencies from sharing your data with third parties for marketing offers, etc.
Getting a prepaid burner phone or second SIM for 2FA _only_ isn't the worst idea. I've also used pretty locked off Google voice, but not all companies accept a VOIP number.
I have several credit cards that offer complementary credit monitoring on a monthly basis and already have alerts setup from credit karma and credit sesame.
In my experience, I always get prompt updates on changes to my credit (ie, new hard inquiries when I was mortgage shopping). Usually less than an hour after the actual event. In some cases, it’s instantaneous.
Freezing credit is more of a nuclear option in my opinion. Unfreezing your credit with these agencies is not something that is easy. Usually takes a couple of days.
The one aspect I have “frozen” access to is my “Work Number” by Equifax. Apparently companies have been sending Equifax this information without our explicit consent. It’s disgusting.
Prevention is better than trying to cleanup after a mess that’s already been made.
Unfreezing has been quick and painless. I just need to ask whoever is doing the pull which agency they’re using. It does not take days. A credit check should also be a pretty infrequent event. I froze mine back in 2017 and have only had to unfreeze it a handful of times in the last 7 years.
> Freezing credit is more of a nuclear option in my opinion. Unfreezing your credit with these agencies is not something that is easy. Usually takes a couple of days.
Please don’t spread FUD. It’s instantaneous if done online, have done it several times.
This should be standard practice for everyone after the Equifax breach several years ago.
Of course if someone can take control of a person’s phone number, that’s essentially a new form of identity theft now that 2FA has turned our phones into our identity, whether we asked for it or not.