In case y'all live under a rock, there was a serious data breach at Equifax. I've already verified that both my info and my wife's has been potentially impacted. Please take appropriate steps to protect yourself and your family.

Article from Krebs: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2017/09/breach-at-equifax-may-impact-143m-americans/

Check whether you've been affected, requires your last name and last 6 of SSN: <removed>

ETA: I removed the link to check to see if you're affected because Equifax true to form are being dicks, and by clicking you limit your rights to legal remedies from them. Typical douche bags.

Will a credit freeze protect a person who's information was breached?

Yes I believe it will.  That's what Clark Howard is recommending everyone do.

Thanks!

At 143 million people they lost basically 100% of the customers they maintain files on.  The sad part is that if the hackers had paid Equifax would have sold them the data. I also enjoy that 3 executives sold $1.8 million in stock right before this was released to the press. I hope they go to jail for that bit of insider trading.

That link to check if you were affected was a dummy page that returned you a random answer.  You could visit it multiple times on different browsers and it would tell you were, then weren't, then were affected again.

Best plan of action is to freeze your credit at all of the credit bureaus, lock out web and phone access to your social security account, don't waste your money or things like lifelock which have been proven to be scams, and then join the class action suit against equifax when it comes out.

I froze my credit and the wife's. I think that's the only way to protect yourself at this point. GA law says they can only charge $3 to freeze/thaw your credit. Equifax is free for ~30 days.

I've been wondering if the hackers have the PIN numbers to unlock frozen accounts. That would be a kick in the head.

That question has been asked and to my knowledge, nobody knows the answer.  I think you have to assume that they did and respond accordingly.  That said, Equifax does not currently have a system in place that allows you to change those PINS.  They are reportedly working on a function that would allow you to do so however.

How do I freeze my credit?

At one point, one of the agencies was assigning you a pin based on the date and time you requested it. I'm not sure which one. This came off a group mailer at work:

When I froze mine, the pins didn't look like that.

Go to clark.com and search for credit freeze. He has a very detailed page on how to freeze your credit.

WARNING***WARNING***WARNING

If you go to Equifax's site on the breach (either from the FAQ or any of the consumer pages), there is a big button that says "Enroll to Protect and Monitor Credit -- Free".  It takes you to Equifax's
TrustedID service which is simply their proprietary monitoring product.

DO NOT CLICK OR SIGN UP!  YOU WILL WAIVE YOUR RIGHTS TO ANY LAWSUITS OR FUTURE LEGAL ACTION AGAINST EQUIFAX AS THE RESULT OF THIS BREACH!

After a few class-action suits, they *may* have taken it out, but I just looked at the T's and C's on Friday.  I don't see any language that would indicate this.  Use a monitoring service from someone else or, as others have said, simply freeze your credit.

LINK from Marketwatch

I work in the industry and have worked with Equifax for over a decade now.  I cannot comment on this specific incident any more than Brian Krebs has.  However, there are sooo many crazy side stories ranging from the CSO's BA and MFA in music to the real story around the sale of stock (which wasn't as sinister as the media made it out to be).