In the wake of Equifax’s breach, the credit agency hired Mandiant to conduct a review. Mandiant’s review concluded that an additional 2.5 million consumers were subject to the breach, bringing the total to 145.5 million. “Equifax said it will mail notices to all potentially impacted individuals that have been identified since the Sept. 7 announcement.” […]
Category Archives: Identity Theft
Richard Smith, the beleaguered CEO of Equifax, has stepped down from his post. Apart from referring to Smith’s exit as a “retirement,” Equifax makes no effort to conceal the reasons for his departure. Since Equifax’s data breach was made public earlier this month, “[a]s much as one-third of Equifax’s market value [has] vanished;” the corporation […]
In response to Equifax’s July data breach, droves of Americans rush to freeze their credit, overwhelming the “Big Three” credit bureaus’ resources. See NBC News video here
What GAO Found Identity theft services offer some benefits but have limitations. Credit monitoring helps detect new-account fraud (that is, the opening of new unauthorized accounts) by alerting users, but it does not prevent such fraud or address existing-account fraud, such as misuse of a stolen credit card number. Consumers have alternatives to credit monitoring, including […]
How can I protect myself from identity theft? Identity theft is a growing problem that is costing American consumers billions of dollars every year according to the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics. In fact, it has been reported that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reported over 490,000 identity fraud complaints in the last year […]