At a time
when the nation’s attention is turned to the hurricane disasters of Irma in
Florida and Harvey in the Houston area, Equifax, one of three large credit
reporting agencies in the U.S. chose, in true political fashion, to disclose
that its customer credit data base has been compromised -- 143 million social
security numbers and other personal information records are now in the hands of cyber criminals.
Equifax
discovered this breach in July but did not report it until late this week and after
certain executives of the company had sold some of their stock.
Company representatives said that the executives
had no prior knowledge of the cyber attack.
A class-action
lawsuit has already been filed against Equifax, and its stock dropped
by 14% in this Friday’s trading.
To check if
your credit record is among those hacked, click on this link: www.equifaxsecurity2017.com.
Scroll down and click on
the colored box “Potential Impact,” followed
by “Check Potential Impact.”
A dialogue box
will pop up, and you will be asked to enter your last name and the last 6
digits of your social security number.
This will
tell you if you have been hacked, and you will be offered a free year of
protection (big deal!!). But that’s not
the end of it.
You will also be required to follow up on a future day specified by Equifax
“to continue through the enrollment
process” by going to www.faq.trustedidpremier.com
(As of this writing that website is not active.)
Equifax further states, “Please be sure to
mark your calendar as you will not receive additional reminders.”
Is it any
wonder that Equifax is being sued?
Good luck!
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