Why you might want to make sure your credit is where you left it.
A recent consumer survey suggests that more than half of Americans still haven’t checked their credit report since the big Equifax breach late last year, which exposed Social Security numbers, dates of birth, addresses and other personal data of nearly 150 million people.
The problem here is that a good swath of people affected by the breach are keeping their heads in the sand and aren’t even checking to see if they’ve been affected.
One of the most recent very visible results of the Equifax data breach has been in fraudulent tax filings.
Scammers are exploiting data from the recent Equifax breach, along with additional information from your employment records to fraudulently file employee’s tax returns. This scam has impacted tens of thousands of people this year and hasn’t let up. Keeping track of your sensitive information hasn’t been more important than now.
It’s easier today to get ahold of employee data that could potentially compromise your staff’s identities to criminals.
Today I wanted to remind you why keeping track of your credit report is one of the easiest ways to ensure your identity is intact.
How can you obtain your credit report?
All credit reports from each of the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) can be obtained for free online at annualcreditreport.com.
I realize that keeping your credit report on the top of mind does require considerable discipline, but if you’re not checking in on your report, you might be missing serious red flags to identity theft. The longer you wait to find red flags in your credit report, the longer you’re opening the door to bigger problems down the road.
Keep in mind that credit reports are not a golden ticket to making sure you’re completely secure and free of fraud, but checking your report regularly gives you a good idea. The biggest help credit monitoring give you is helping to sort out with the credit bureaus any discrepancies or fraud on your credit report—especially reconciling fraudulent accounts opened in your name.
Are there any additional steps you can take to protect your identity?
If you’re concerned you’ve been affected, consider freezing your credit—with a freeze to your credit file in place, even if identity thieves try to open credit in your name, they won’t be able to get very far. Before granting lines of credit, every credit will evaluate how risky your account is. When they see a freeze on your account, the likely won’t have a second thought to reject the application.
To freeze your account, you will have to sign up for credit monitoring services. Again, annualcreditreport.com is the best place to start. The credit monitoring service will need access to your credit file before they actually can put a hold on your account.
Limit your exposure on social media—one of the easiest ways in 2018 for cyber scammers to glean valuable information from you is through social media. Without giving second thought, many of us over share online, including golden tidbits that we’ve used to verify our identities to log into important accounts. A scammer may easily find your mother’s maiden name, what city you grew up in, the name of your first pet, your birthdate and a whole bunch of other treasures by simply scanning your Facebook account.
They also can find out your typical routines—what restaurants or destinations you frequent, who you often talk to or spend time with, all of which can be valuable information in either setting up a very targeted phishing scam or cracking your accounts.
Check bank accounts regularly—one of the biggest mistakes folks make when their identities have been compromised by fraudulent activity is not actively checking financial accounts. While Equifax may have happened months ago (out of sight and out of mind), scammers are sitting on piles of information waiting for the best time to use it. One of the easiest quick cash ways for them to score on your data is by cracking into your bank accounts.
Check your accounts at least monthly to see if there are any unusual logins or suspicious charges/ withdrawals from your account and contact your bank immediately after finding suspicious activity. While banks are using artificial intelligence to monitor your accounts for suspicious activity, they often miss things that you wouldn’t. Be proactive in keeping your finances secure by checking in on them often.
Don’t use the same passwords for everything—I hate to say this, but many of us still are using the one password system (one password for every single account). The problem with this is that once a hacker cracks your password, everything you have is in jeopardy.
Make sure to have secure and unique passwords for every account. And be sure your team knows to use secure and unique passwords for their business accounts. If you’re not sure if your business is managing passwords effectively, consider a free security roadmap meeting to figure out how to improve as an organization.
Protect your business network—another big oversight by many employees is how much sensitive personal information your business actually stores. If your network is not secure—you haven’t applied security patches, aren’t monitoring your network for suspicious activity, have no clue where all of your sensitive files are on your network—you may be putting their identities at risk!
Keeping track of all of your security can be really difficult in 2018. Are you doing everything you can to protect your team against a data breach? Contact us today for a FREE security roadmap meeting to see ways to improve the way you keep your team safe.
