Credits and debits
Good Thursday morning to everyone.
Here in my area, we're getting that promised portion of the remains of hurricane Irma, but a fraction of what folks further south experienced. My thoughts are certainly with those affected in Florida and the Caribbean.
The Equifax hack that we all learned about late last week is more evidence that nothing and no one is entirely safe online. Try as we might to be cautious and use the kinds of safeguards that make the most sense, someone's always out there trying to extract information from banks, retailers and now credit reporting services.
A good friend works in compliance and security for a regional bank and is a certified auditor, so I consulted him for advice. His comments were simple and straightforward--freeze your credit reports immediately and consider a security product to protect your information from such attacks.
I spent a fair amount of time Sunday evening moving gradually through all three credit reporting bureaus' websites (Experian, Trans Union, and of course Equifax) and all were structured a little differently. In doing so I found a few minor errors on each report, so I submitted requests for correction while I was in their processes, and all have reported removal of the erroneous information.
So I should be protected from people trying to pose as me and opening credit card and other accounts in my name, as no one, not even me, can access those credit reports without me lifting my requested freeze. We're not planning any major purchases just now, so this isn't much of a hardship for us. But if we needed to buy a car, for example, the freezes would need to be lifted to facilitate a credit application for that purpose. And then put back into place. At $10 per instance, I found.
But let's be frank about this--if hackers can get into other systems with this kind of ease, what else are they getting into? It's not about MY information, of course, it's about as many people's info as can be obtained.
My son in law works in fraud detection for a financial institution and he's told a lot of stories about how hackers can intercept the wireless transmission of transaction data from department stores. When you swipe your card at the gas station, it's being transmitted by satellite to your bank to verify the funds. And as we've seen from ominous commercials, what's to stop a retail clerk or food server from cloning your card when you make a purchase?
I should add to all of this that Monday I received a fraudulent text message claiming that my Chase debit card was locked and that I would need to call a certain number to release the lock. And I don't even bank with Chase.
And isn't it interesting that several Equifax executives dumped large amounts of their stock right after this breach was discovered, but right before it became public? So much for "women and children first..."
So take care with your information and freeze your credit reports. That's the one universal advice I've yet seen on this entire mess.
Here in my area, we're getting that promised portion of the remains of hurricane Irma, but a fraction of what folks further south experienced. My thoughts are certainly with those affected in Florida and the Caribbean.
The Equifax hack that we all learned about late last week is more evidence that nothing and no one is entirely safe online. Try as we might to be cautious and use the kinds of safeguards that make the most sense, someone's always out there trying to extract information from banks, retailers and now credit reporting services.
A good friend works in compliance and security for a regional bank and is a certified auditor, so I consulted him for advice. His comments were simple and straightforward--freeze your credit reports immediately and consider a security product to protect your information from such attacks.
I spent a fair amount of time Sunday evening moving gradually through all three credit reporting bureaus' websites (Experian, Trans Union, and of course Equifax) and all were structured a little differently. In doing so I found a few minor errors on each report, so I submitted requests for correction while I was in their processes, and all have reported removal of the erroneous information.
So I should be protected from people trying to pose as me and opening credit card and other accounts in my name, as no one, not even me, can access those credit reports without me lifting my requested freeze. We're not planning any major purchases just now, so this isn't much of a hardship for us. But if we needed to buy a car, for example, the freezes would need to be lifted to facilitate a credit application for that purpose. And then put back into place. At $10 per instance, I found.
But let's be frank about this--if hackers can get into other systems with this kind of ease, what else are they getting into? It's not about MY information, of course, it's about as many people's info as can be obtained.
My son in law works in fraud detection for a financial institution and he's told a lot of stories about how hackers can intercept the wireless transmission of transaction data from department stores. When you swipe your card at the gas station, it's being transmitted by satellite to your bank to verify the funds. And as we've seen from ominous commercials, what's to stop a retail clerk or food server from cloning your card when you make a purchase?
I should add to all of this that Monday I received a fraudulent text message claiming that my Chase debit card was locked and that I would need to call a certain number to release the lock. And I don't even bank with Chase.
And isn't it interesting that several Equifax executives dumped large amounts of their stock right after this breach was discovered, but right before it became public? So much for "women and children first..."
So take care with your information and freeze your credit reports. That's the one universal advice I've yet seen on this entire mess.
Comments
Post a Comment