If You're Affected By a Data Breach, Here's How You Protect Your Credit Rating
1 min read
Summary
With the number of data breaches in the news lately, it’s no surprise that many people’s personal data is easily found on the dark web.
Hackers use this data to create accurate profiles with which to impersonate people.
The proliferation of online data breaches has made it simple for hackers to access people’s personal data, which they can use to open lines of credit, take out loans, and much more.
The best way to prevent this type of fraudulent activity is to freeze people’s credit, which prevents new credit activity from taking place.
To do this, contact the three main credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion), and ask them to freeze all new credit activity.
As well as freezing people’s credit, there are a number of other steps people can take to protect their data and identity, such as creating a fraud alert and investigating what data has been exposed in any breaches.
It’s also a good idea to change the passwords of any affected accounts and turn on multi-factor authentication (MFA).
