Equifax breach: Why all Americans need to pay attention and take steps to protect themselves
To help consumers get a better grasp on just how big the Equifax breach really is, I recently spoke to the folks at Cheddar about exactly what happened and what you can do to protect yourself.
More details on the data hack
Equifax, one of the nation’s three main credit reporting agencies, announced on September 8 it was the victim of a major hack that exposed the personal information of 143 million U.S. consumers — or two-thirds of all Americans with credit reports.
In reality, we really have no idea how many people were actually impacted. While Equifax’s initial estimate is 143M Americans, that number could actually be a lot higher — which means it’s crucial that all Americans take steps to protect their money and identity from any potential damage.
Plus, this thing isn’t going away any time soon. Yes, criminals have a lot of personal data in their hands, but it could be years before any of it is actually used to carry out fraud against consumers.
