Equifax, one of the three major credit-reporting agencies,
recently reported a breach of its security. As described by
Equifax, intruders obtained access to information — including
names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and additional
personal information — of 143 million U.S. consumers.
This information can be used to steal your identity. While
identity theft has become common, the size of this breach and the
sensitivity of the information revealed should be enough to focus
anyone's attention on this issue.
As of now, there is no reliable way to confirm whether your
personal information was compromised in the Equifax breach.1 There are, however, steps you can
take whether you are concerned about this breach in particular or
about the overall threat of identity theft:
