482-The Equifax Data Breach: Background, How It Affects You, and the Minimum Steps You Need to Take to Protect Yourself

Today we tackle the Equifax security breach. This is the most damaging release of personal information ever. And you need to take it seriously.

You must assume that you have been affected. At this point, I see no reason to even trust the official Equifax website. Here's why.

• Clark Howard's excellent credit freeze guide: http://clark.com/personal-finance-credit/credit-freeze-and-thaw-guide/
• Another excellent one by the Justin Carroll and Michael Bazzell: https://privacy-training.com/CreditFreeze.pdf
• I forgot to mention this on the show, but here's a link for those of you who are readers of the resources. The IRS seems to use social media to find people committing tax fraud. Source: http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2017/08/the-irs-is-mining-taxpayer-data-on-social-media-in-violation-of-federal-privacy-law.html
• The official Equifax response website: www.equifaxsecurity2017.com
• Why the Equifax breach is possibly the worst leak of personal information ever.
• What should you do if your data was hacked?
• The novel I mentioned: True Faith And Allegiance, a Tom Clancy novel by Mark Greaney