3 Steps to Protect Your Credit Even If You’re Not a Capital One Cardholder

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A rash of massive breaches has exposed hundreds of millions of consumers’ personal information, including names, addresses, and social security numbers. On Monday, July 29, 2019, Capital One announced a breach that affected 140 Million consumer and small business cardholders, 80,000 bank accounts linked to secured credit cards, and 8 million Canadian cardholders. Capital One’s Breach is pegged as the most massive breach of financial institutions. My account being one of them based on the notification received.

The good news is the lone suspect Paige Thompson was placed in custody by the FBI. Thompson was a former systems engineer of the cloud hosting service that Capital One uses to archive credit card applications and accountholder information. This narcissistic hacker, using alias “erratic” on the black web,  bragged about her successful hack in March 2019. A fellow hacker who purchased Capital One’s cardholder information sent them an email in May 2019 tipping them off on the breach. Unlike other organizations that have been hacked, Capital is being proactive in sharing what they are doing to assist their cardholders. They also acknowledged the reality of the significant restitution that will be required due to a class action suit already filed.

Whether you were affected by Capital One, Equifax, or any other massive breach or NOT, here are 3 easy steps to take to protect your credit.

Monitor Your Account Regularly

Many people don’t pay close attention to their accounts or even review their monthly bank or credit card statements. However, reviewing your account activity regularly will help to identify abnormal transactions that may be fraud.

If you use online banking services or apps to access bank account information or believe your account(s) may be vulnerable due to a breach at your bank, change your password immediately! Use lower and uppercase, numbers, and special characters to strengthen your password from hackers. Set a reminder on your phone or calendar to change your passwords at least 30 to 60 days.

Check and Freeze Your Credit

Do a financial physical by checking your credit at least one to two times per year.  Go to annualcreditreport.com to access free copies of your credit report from the three major credit reporting companies, Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Equifax Breach Settlement now allows consumers to get free access to their Equifax credit report more than one time per year.

For added protection of your credit, place a freeze on your credit reports so they cannot be viewed without your consent and conscience action to unfreeze the access. Go to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion to set up an account to freeze each of the credit reports.

Sign Up for Credit Monitoring Service

Credit monitoring service tracks changes in borrowers’ behaviors to send notification to consumers of potential fraud activity. Equifax Breach Settlement and Capital One’s proactive actions are offering consumers Credit Monitoring Service at no cost.

Credit Karma, known for free access to credit scores for consumers, also has a free credit monitoring service.