4n6ir.com
Yet another company lost your sensitive information
by John Lukach
Too often, I get questions about options when an individual’s sensitive information is out in the wild. Companies commonly provide credit monitoring for a limited period and recommend identity theft insurance. The frequency of these occurrences makes this reaction unsustainable.
Prepare
It is not if but when your sensitive information will be lost. Please store your credentials in a password manager to prepare for this event. It lets you track unique, complex passwords for every account.
1Password provides a feature called Watchtower that allows for the identification of compromised passwords. If you run your password manager locally, Have I Been Pwned helps meet this feature requirement.
Identifying the impacted vendor can be challenging; thus, using a unique plus email address or a sub-address email for every account can increase mitigation speed. Most email providers now provide this capability to end users.
hello+there@4n6ir.com
Prevent
It is too late to prevent identity theft if your credit report is not locked or frozen at the four credit bureaus. Removing access to your credit report prevents new credit from being opened in your name.
Credit reports can be locked for free, which works best for younger or older individuals without changing credit needs.
- Transunion has the best online experience with a free account.
- Innovis has a free online form but a three-day turnaround time.
- Experian has a $5 monthly fee, including identity theft insurance.
- Equifax has a $5 monthly fee for the online experience only.
The Consumer Credit Reporting website accepts and processes consumer requests to opt in or out of firm offers of credit or insurance.
https://www.optoutprescreen.com
Proactive
Removing your information from the data brokers helps prevent future issues too.
tags: equifax - experian - innovis - transunion