Equifax, Capital One violations: How to protect yourself if your bank is hacked

Events like the recent Capital One breach or the whole Equifax hack in 2017 can leave you feeling vulnerable and helpless – and rightly so. It's one thing to have your Facebook or Twitter Compromised account, but being a victim of a financial institution being hacked adds a whole new level of distress.

Our bank accounts contain some of our most personal information, such as social security numbers, credit and debit card numbers, where you live and our financial records.

When a person has all of your personal information, it is natural to think that you can not do anything to prevent further damage. But that's not the case – you can do a lot to make sure your credit, your identity and your online accounts stay with you.

Reading in progress:
Look at this:

Data Leak in Capital One: Here's What to Do

1:43

Temporarily freeze your credit

One of the first things to do is to freeze your credit. This will prevent anyone with your information from opening a line of credit or taking out a loan on your behalf. Freezing your credit will not take long, just fill out a form for Equifax, Experian and Transunion to make the request.

The downside to freezing your credit is that when you want to make a purchase, such as upgrading your iPhone through a payment plan, you need to briefly remove the freeze on your credit and then freeze it again. time you need it. are done.

Then watch your credit

Staying abad of what's on your credit report is a simple way to make sure someone is not using your information maliciously. Some companies offer free credit monitoring to victims of a data breach, but this is often only temporary.

Credit monitoring services help you to view your credit report, where you can, hopefully, catch the fake accounts as soon as they happen.

Sign up for identity theft surveillance

Tracking your credit report is an important step to take. However, your personal information can do a lot more. An identity monitoring service will monitor your social security number, your credit, as well as the dark web for anyone selling or exchanging your personal information or arrests on your behalf. You should have peace of mind if someone tries to do anything with your personal information.

Use a pbadword manager

Using a unique and strong pbadword for every online account you own is a simple way to make sure that a violation of a service does not mean that dishonest people are accessing more of your online accounts for which you used the same pbadword.

Instead of reusing a pbadword – or a series of pbadwords – trust a pbadword manager to automatically create, store, and fill in your login information.

Do not wait to switch to action

The most important aspect of taking action after the announcement of a hack or violation is not to wait for the companies to announce how they want you to treat them. Be proactive. In the end, it's your information and your financial future that is at stake.

After locking in your credit and starting the monitoring services, start considering the suggestions of the companies involved.

Some violations result in regulations, requiring the affected corporation to provide free services or, as in the Equifax case, to propose regulations.