Tag: equifax breach

Equifax Breach: It’s Worse than You Thought

Equifax has released more info about the data stolen by the hacks in 2017 and it’s pretty grim. According to a letter Equifax submitted to the SEC on Monday, here are the numbers of actual compromises:

  • 146.6  million names
  • 146.6 million D.O.B.
  • 145.5 million Social Security Numbers
  • 99 million addresses
  • 27.3 million gender
  • 20.3 million phone numbers
  • 17.6 million driver’s license numbers
  • 1.8 million email addresses (without credentials)
  • 209,000 credit card numbers and expiration dates
  • 97,500 tax ID numbers

And the following government issued IDs:

  • 38,000 Driver’s license numbers
  • 12,000 Social Security or Taxpayer ID Card
  • 3,200 passport or passport card

What’s the takeaway? You really need to be monitoring your personal credit info. And we don’t recommend LifeLock™ as ironically they use Equifax for monitoring. Take a look at SpotLight ID which I personally use and we recommend to our customers. SpotLight ID provides more comprehensive protection plus it’s about 1/3 less expensive than LifeLock.

Everyone stay safe out there!


 

Thinking about LifeLock? There’s a Better Solution

We already assist our clients with monitoring for cyber breaches and mis-use of corporate data. But we’re also frequently asked about ID Monitoring for individuals.

While LifeLock™ has been around for a long time, we really lost interest in the service after the Equifax data breach. LifeLock™ offers to protect you from the Equifax data breach – by selling you credit monitoring and reporting services provided by Equifax. Yeah, maybe not…

We’re pleased to now offer a much better solution, SpotLightID from our partner ID Agent. ID Agent  has been around for quite a while providing threat intelligence and identity monitoring solutions to the public-sector. We’re delighted that they are now doing the same for private business and individuals.

SpotLightID is much more comprehensive than LifeLock™ and costs about 1/3 less. In particular I like that SpotLightID offers a single plan that covers 2 adults and up to 10 children – all for the same cost as the individual LifeLock™ Ultimate Plus plan.

You can learn more and sign up here.