The 2017 Equifax breach exposed more than initially disclosed: Tax ID numbers, driver's license details, email addresses, and credit card data. Robert Siciliano recommends placing a credit freeze, contacting your auto insurer about your driving record, and filing an IRS identity-theft affidavit to protect against fraudulent tax returns.
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If you were a victim of the Equifax hack, and many of us were, including myself, it may actually be worse than we first thought. Credit rating agency Equifax announced last year that personal information for 143 million Americans was breached. That included names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses, driver's license numbers, and some credit card numbers. But now we know that it was much worse, that the hack also included Tax ID numbers, which are used for people who don't have a Social Security number. Plus email addresses, more credit card information, more driver's license information, including the states and dates in which those licenses were issued. We spoke with a security expert who had these 3 suggestions to protect yourself.
One, of course, is get a credit freeze. We've heard a lot about freezes, and that's definitely something that, uh, prevents the bad guy from opening new lines of credit under your name. In addition, because driver's licenses were compromised, It's important to contact your auto insurance agent, have them check your driving record to make sure everything on it is accurate, meaning that nobody's driving as you and getting moving violations as you. Also, one last thing you could do is search the term IRS identity theft affidavit, and when you search that, you'll find a form at theirs.gov that you fill out telling them that you feel you are a potential victim of identity theft as a result of the Equifax breach. And they will pay close attention to where your tax return goes, opposed to it going to a bad guy.
Now, the fact that tax ID numbers were stolen may seem innocuous to you if you don't have one, but that means that thieves will have a chance to file even more tax returns under other people's names because the IRS only accepts one return per taxpayer over the season. Even people who aren't Equifax customers were impacted because Equifax gathers data from other companies, retailers, employers, even social media.
