The Federal Trade Commission announced it will launch an investigation into the details that led to 143 million stolen identities from an Equifax database.
In Connecticut, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal proposed new legislation that emphasizes stronger security measures and would give consumers more rights regarding who gets access to their information.
Consumer options for the hack are simple: Set up fraud alerts or request a credit freeze. However several people have reported problems trying to do either, mostly due to the magnitude of this breach.
Consumers who wish to freeze their credit need to call Equifax, Transunion and Experian. Reported problems include the bureaus being so inundated with calls that they are unable to process the request or the call drops.
Also, in Connecticut, credit freezes come with fees. Experian and Transunion will each charge $10 for every freeze or removal of a freeze. Equifax will waive theirs.
In a USA Today editorial, the company’s CEO Rick Smith wrote, “We are devoting extraordinary resources to make sure this kind of incident doesn’t happen again.”
But for almost half of the US adult population, the damage is already done.
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“It needs to be a wakeup call,” cybersecurity analyst Theresa Payton told NBC News. “We’ve had repeatedly year after year had these wake up calls. And we hit the snooze button. There’s no more snooze buttons.”
Experts recommend those who do not freeze their credit do, at the very least, initiate a fraud alert.
Consumers only have to do so with one bureau, and it’s free. However, it does expire every 90 days.
