Equifax Data Breach: Protecting Your Identity

Equifax is one of the credit bureaus that gather data to produce and update your credit score. Freedom sends Equifax data on members who apply for loans in order to check credit worthiness.

A few months ago hackers breached the Equifax database. As a result, some individuals had their social security number, driver’s license number, or other data compromised.

Equifax is mailing notices to people who were affected by the data breach. In the meantime, there ARE things you can do to lower your risk of identity theft:

• Check to see if you may have been impacted by the data breach.
• If your data has been compromised, sign up for FREE Equifax identity theft monitoring.
• Continue to use best practices to prevent identity theft:
  1. Use strong passwords. By definition, a strong password consists of at least six characters that are a combination of letters, numbers and symbols (@, #, $, %, etc.) if allowed. Passwords are typically case-sensitive, so a strong password contains letters in both uppercase and lowercase. The longer a password, the stronger it is.
  2. Do NOT respond to requests for personal information received by phone call or email. Freedom will never call or email to ask you for personal information.
  3. Do not write down personal information such as your credit card number or personal identification number (PIN).
  4. Do not let debit and credit cards out of your sight.
  5. Cover your hand when entering your PIN at an ATM or a store.