Equifax Hack: How To Know If You're Affected

You need to find out if you’ve been affected by the data breach.

- Brad Chacos

Credit monitoring agency Equifax revealed shocking news late September 7: A data breach of the company’s servers from mid-May through July 2017 resulted in the theft of the personal information of up to 143 million U.S. consumers—a huge chunk of the country’s 324 million population. Equifax says the breach leaked highly sensitive information, too, including “names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, addresses and, in some instances, driver’s license numbers.”

That’s everything crooks need to open up credit lines in your name, or worse. And now it’s in nefarious hands.

EQUIFAX HACK: WAS I AFFECTED?

Shamefully, Equifax won’t be contacting most of the 143 million victims directly to let them know they’ve fallen prey to data hackers. The hackers also swiped credit card numbers for 209,000 people, and “certain dispute documents with personal identifying information” for 182,000 more. Equifax will mail those particular victims—far less than 1 percent of everyone affected—a notice that they were affected by the breach.