The massive Social Security number breach is actually a good thing
The social security data breach highlights the risk of identity theft.
www.vox.com
For those who missed it, hundreds of millions of US citizens' Social Security Numbers were compromised through a massive data breach a few weeks back. Today I was notified by my credit monitoring service my SSN has appeared on the dark web.
My monitoring company recommended I check and freeze my credit reports with all three credit reporting companies. After getting over my "oh sh*t" moment, I jumped into the credit reporting stuff. I was very anxious, but very quickly realized all the steps recommended by the company were quite easy, especially freezing my credit reports.
The article above tells you how to do what I did today. I'm not giving legal or financial advice, but given the sheer magnitude of this breach, probably not a bad idea to at least check your credit reports. As for freezing the reports, might not want to do that if you are in the process of obtaining a loan. From what I saw, unfreezing looks relatively simple on all three sites should you need to apply for a loan down the road.
No need to panic or get shook like I did, just follow the directions on the sites and it goes quickly. And I must admit, I love the thought of some dark web, ne'er-do-well type screaming, "That SoB Duke shut me down!" He may go to you next, however. Better safe than sorry.
