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Equifax Breach

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The Equifax hack has been all over the news, and there is reason to be concerned.  The breach exposed names, social security numbers, birth dates, addresses and driver’s license numbers of 143 million people.

Now that this information has been stolen, it will be used for years to steal people’s identity.   There are steps to take to protect yourself. First, go to the Equifax website to see if your information was compromised.

“There are steps to take to protect yourself”

Next, go to annualcreditreport.com to get a free copy of your credit report.  Look for activity that may be fraudulent.  You should do this every four months, alternating between the three main credit bureaus.  (Don’t use “freecreditreport.com”).

Consider using a credit monitoring service.  Alternatively, your homeowner’s insurance may offer an inexpensive rider to cover the costs if your identity is stolen.

The most secure way to protect yourself is with a credit freeze.  Contact all four bureaus: Experian, Innovis, Trans Union and Equifax.  The cost is $0-10 each, depending on where you live.  You will also have to pay $5 to unfreeze your account for a specific time period or for a specific creditor if you need to open a new account.

Finally, there are already dozens of scams related to the breach.  Equifax is now calling people to verify their data, and make sure any website you visit to check on your credit begins with “https”.

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Backups

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Imagine going into the office tomorrow and discovering that all your electronic files are gone.  ALL of them – financial, contributions, minutes to meetings, sermon studies and notes.  Years of work vanished.   Last week it happened again.  I got a call from a client inquiring if I had a copy of some critical files.  I did not.   The computer that housed these files had crashed (although it was only a year old).  I asked the obvious question – “do you have a backup?”.  He did not.  It will take months of work to recreate the missing data.

Imagine going into the office tomorrow and discovering that all your electronic files are gone.“

Always keep a backup of computer files that is stored off site.  Keeping the backup on a thumb drive that is kept in the office is certainly better than nothing (it would have helped in this situation), but if a disaster such as a fire occurs, the computer and the backup are both lost – so a process that keeps a backup off-site or on-line is a must.

There are also options that will automatically backup your computer files on-line (which also allows you to have access to them from anywhere).  Backblaze, SugarSync, IDrive, Drop Box and Carbonite are a few options.

I got another call a few days later.  The client took the computer to an expert who was able to restore some of the files from the computer.  He was fortunate, but the additional time, cost and stress involved in restoring the files could have been avoided.