In the last week and a half, we have had news of another North Korean missile launch, protests in St. Louis, President Trump tweeting about anything and a terrorist attack in Britain. The news item that probably affects more Americans directly than any of those is the news of the security breach at Equifax.
I have been contacted by several clients asking Are they effected? What is the threat? and What to do? This hopefully answers some of your questions and gives you a path for the way forward.
Where we are.
Last week Equifax announced that personal data of approximately 143 million Americans as of this writing had been stolen. Equifax has begun some paltry attempts to begin recovering. They early on put up a website to discover if your information had been compromised. The website was not well supported and crashed multiple times. They also offered an 800 number to call in to. Numerous people report calling in and receiving incorrect advice from untrained call center workers, if they were able to get an answer at all. Early on Equifax offered a free year of credit monitoring but part of signing up for it was waiving your right to sue for damages. The stipulation has since been removed but the credit monitoring service is largely a symbolic gesture. Government investigations have been promised, some of Equifax’s corporate leadership has “retired”. Recent reports suggest that some Equifax executives had sold stock in the
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