Sounds like a number of organizations, including Delta Dental, had a security breach last summer. All the information one needs to set up new identities and credit.

But not to worry: they have top men looking into it. And they are starting to let us know about the breach now. Oh, and they are providing some monitoring services. Just enter all this information into yet another system that is
probably susceptible to a breach at some point in the future. It'll monitor things for you. Or maybe just provide your information yet again. Do you feel lucky?

Freeze all your credit reports. Even if your information gets out there, no one can open new lines of credit with it.

How do I freeze all my credit reports? And if I do, what happens when my insurance companies, who use them in rating, no longer have them available?

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
How do I freeze all my credit reports? And if I do, what happens when my insurance companies, who use them in rating, no longer have them available?

You do it one by one with each of the three credit bureaus. It's free. You set up an online account with each; you don't have to pay for any upgrade service.

I froze mine when late last year, one of my credit card services alerted me that my info (Name / SSN) was found on the dark web from a data breach of some financial company that provided services for some other companies.


Equifax

Experian

TransUnion

But when you go to the TransUnion website, just be careful to not misgender it.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
How do I freeze all my credit reports?

As I posted in an earlier thread (and probably once or twice in addition to that):

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:
Not enough. Not nearly enough. I advise:

• Credit inquiry freezes at Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion,
  
• Bank account inquiry freeze at ChexSystems, and
  
• Utilities account inquiry freeze at NCTUE
  

My wife and I also have identity theft monitoring and mitigation through IdentityForce.

quote:

Originally posted by ridewv:
And if I do, what happens when my insurance companies, who use them in rating, no longer have them available?

It's a PITA, but, every time somebody is going to want to do a credit report check you have to find out which reporting agency they plan to use and do a temporary un-freeze.

#ensigmatic

Thank you for the great information.

Can you please post phone numbers and / or web sites for ChexSystems and NCTUE so that we know we are at the correct sites. Not some scammers.

Regrettably, and unfortunately, healthcare companies and medical practices seem to be increasingly the target of hackers; at least two in my local area have been victimized in the past year. My late wife and I placed "freezes" on as many credit agencies as we could (ensigmatic has done the forum a service in posting those beyond the big three) after being notified years ago about breaches at US government agencies and major financial institutions. I am not sure the healthcare industry takes the problem as seriously as they should. And unfortunately, some "offshore" transcription of medical records off-shore where our personal data becomes very vulnerable (notified of two such breaches in the past ten years or so). The best defense that consumers have is to put "security freezes" with as many credit agencies as possible; it is easy to "lift" the freezes for a temporary period to allow those with a "need to know" to access your financial and other personal data. If you have been notified of a breach or suspect one it does no harm to place a fraud alert through the credit agencies.

I have had my information breached so many times I have lost count.

When they breach the government at least twice they have records of everything I have ever done and enough to copy my identity at any time.

The good part is the chance of anyone picking my record out of the 400 million records that have been breached recently is slim.

It is more likely that someone steals your credit card info or creates it randomly is a bigger risk.

Be vigilant and watch your bank statements and credit card statements.

Get your free annual credit report and check it carefully.

You get one free from each major agency so you can spread them out every 4 months.

quote:

Originally posted by still_bill:
#ensigmatic

Thank you for the great information.

You're welcome.

quote:

Originally posted by still_bill:
Can you please post phone numbers and / or web sites for ChexSystems and NCTUE so that we know we are at the correct sites. Not some scammers.

Certainly. From my keyring (password manager):

ChexSystems

NCTUE Exchange Service Center

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
I have had my information breached so many times I have lost count.

Same here.

Mentioned this latest to my wife, yesterday. "We should probably..." she started to say. "We should probably do nothing," I replied. "Our information has been stolen from so many places, so many times, Yet Another Breach has become meaningless."

quote:

Originally posted by sig2392:
It is more likely that someone steals your credit card info or creates it randomly is a bigger risk.

True, but...

In network security we have a concept known as "exposure." "Exposure" is, to security risks, kind of like vector is to physics. A vector is a combination of magnitude and direction. Likewise: Exposure is a combination of probability/likelihood/risk and the potential resulting damage.

In terms of exposure your CC info, while (much?) more likely to be abused, is also far less potentially damaging to your life than identity theft. A compromised CC is almost always quickly resolved with a quick call to the card issuer. Identity theft, OTOH, can take hundreds of man-hours to clean up and can pursue your life for years.

Much, much greater exposure.

This is why my wife and I are both subscribed to a reputable identity theft monitoring and remediation service.

This may sound “tin foil hat” but lots of these data breaches and electronic incursions are ways of identifying and exploiting weaknesses in the data systems we rely on.
with the ultimate goal of crashing systems and garbling information severely until it is a threat to our civilization as we know it. The term cyber attack is appropriate and is being attempted countless times daily by lots of enemies of the west.

I know a guy who works in USAF cyber work, and even with the limited stuff he can divulge, enemies like China are doing everything they can to get into and destroy our systems. While certainly the extreme doomsday stuff like taking over aircraft controls or nuclear power plants comes to mind, but more subtle stuff that can really jack things up can be very serious too.
For example what would happen if an attack completely crashed the social security pay or military pay systems, causing people not getting paid for a long period of time?
Or the healthcare breaches resulting in medical chart allergy lists being changed or deleted.
All these attacks simply chip away at the technology our society now is dependent on in small increments until the entire system falls

So, is this saying that the intent is not the data itself, just the ability to breach and someday cause the system to crash. The data itself is not really of interest?

I was just, again, arguing with my boss this week about how things like Copilot have no business being a part of our corporate culture.

What does it have access to? Don't know.
What does it do with all of the data it scrapes? Don’t know.

People get upset about data breaches like this, and then turn around and install an “AI” tool on their computer “because it will write a proposal for them”.

I’m baffled.

Yup - my minor daughter was affected by this too.. They provided credit monitoring for two years..