Credit Repository Data Breach Announced Yesterday
Credit Repository Data Breach Announced Yesterday
A message from Curtis R Knuth, Executive Vice President at NCS (National Credit-reporting System, Inc.).
A message from Curtis R Knuth, Executive Vice President at NCS
(National Credit-reporting System, Inc.).
Credit Repository Data Breach Announced Yesterday
As you’ve likely read or heard, one of the three data repositories for credit reporting information had a massive data breach earlier this year affecting over 143 million of the US population. Social Security Numbers, names, birth dates and driver’s license numbers are some of the data elements stolen. The credit repositories go to extraordinary lengths to protect our data, but obviously, there was a significant vulnerability exploited in this crime.
This breach is not associated with NCS.
You may be asking yourself or your clients may be asking you, “What should I be doing to protect my family and myself from the effects of this breach?” Here are a few suggestions developed by NCS and our data security advisement firm.
1. Visit https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/ to determine whether you’re potentially affected by this breach. Equifax is providing to all Americans a free year of credit monitoring; but please note, if your personal information was breached by Equifax, you’ll need to be proactive in protecting your ID. Equifax’s TrustedID Premier monitoring service does provide several potential fraud alerts and a 1 million dollar ID theft insurance policy (please see Equifax’s fine print); but you may wish to consider taking proactive steps to temporarily freeze your lines of credit. Here’s information from the Federal Trade Association (FTC) and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on freezing your credit report;
2. Be wary of fake offers or scams following this announcement. There will undoubtedly be attempts by thieves to use this opportunity to trick you into providing them with your information. Use only the tools provided by the official Equifax website.
3. Take advantage of the Equifax offerings. If you’re not on the list, don't assume your information is safe. Equifax is offering a number of free services to every US consumer within the TrustedID Premier package, including identity theft protection and credit monitoring. I encourage you, your families and your clients to review the Equifax public announcement and consider this offer via their official website: https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/.
4. Take an aggressive stance on data security to prevent your business from a similar incident. It is critical that we remain proactive together to harden our companies against this growing threat from cyber-attack. NCS’ data security advisors, Oxford Solutions recommends aligning your business to an internationally recognized security framework such as the NIST Cybersecurity Framework, ISO 27001, or others in order to become a harder target for cyber criminals.
As always, we thank you for your business. Please contact me or your NCS representative if you’d like to discuss NCS services or have further questions/concerns.
Best wishes,
Curt
Curtis Knuth, Executive Vice President
phone: 800.582.7066
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