Equifax Breach

So this was the mother lode for criminal hacks. Basically every American with credit got their full names, addresses, and social security numbers stolen, plus other data as well. That's 140 million social security numbers.

Say goodbye to a world of anonymity and hello to a world where such identifiers are publically known.

This will probably move us faster to facial recognition, fingerprint readings, and chip implants as the de facto means of identification over such arcane means as a 9 digit number.

Or...OR....A TEN DIGIT NUMBER!!!

Seriously though, I hadn't heard much about this. Is there anything being done about it? I guess once that info is out, there's not much that can be.

Yes.
Some Equifax execs had sold off stock before the public disclosure.
Though "officially" they didn't know about the breach at the time of the sale.

I guess they're offering one-year free fraud monitoring.

Yeah it's really too late. Here is a summary of the damage it could have on us.

You can do some things to alleviate some of that:

Use the annual free credit checks to monitor fraudulent activity. There are three different agencies that do this for you, so you can do a different one every 4 months.

Put a credit freeze through all 3.

Check your bank accounts monthly, if not weekly.

Yeah so now because of their breach, we have to shell out between $5 and $10 to freeze, lift and/or remove it. https://consumersunion.org/research/consumers-unions-guide-to-security-freeze-protection-2/

And it goes right back to the criminals! WTF?!?

Maybe if I spend $15 to freeze my account across all 3, I'll qualify for a class action lawsuit and get back $1.45 in about 15 years ....

Of course, if I wait until I become a victim of ID theft, it will be free!!

Yeah well....

Life isn't fair.