You may have heard about a lawsuit filed regarding a data breach concerning social security numbers. I encourage you to read at least the first few pages of the linked class action complaint to see how massive a violation of privacy this is.
The data breach concerns National Public Data, a company which offers background checks. They collect personally identifiable information (PII) as a part of their business. The defendant claims that NPD scraped PII from non-public sources (¶11). NPD then stored the data in an insecure manner and did not adequately protect this personal information (¶25). Consequently, a hacking group by the name of "USDoD" stole records of 2.9 billion individuals from NPD. According to the document, the data was independently reviewed by VX-underground, the cybersecurity company. They confirmed the breach included full names, address and address history, and social security numbers. They were also able to identify familial connections, both living and deceased (¶ 22-24).
Based on this class action complaint, NPD's conduct was grossly negligent, leading to potential identity theft for almost anyone in the United States. It was also a massive privacy violation by scraping data from non-public sources. Even after they took millions of Americans personal information, they failed to secure the data from hackers.
Criminals can ruin your life if they target you with this information. They can open lines of credit without you knowing. You might only find out until creditors call you, demanding that you pay them back (¶60).
So, yeah. I am very concerned. I'll have to figure out how to defend against this identity theft. Overall, I'm new to the privacy community, but I'm feeling like "privacy" in the United States is an absolute mess. If your data wasn't somewhere on the dark web, it might be now. Protect your data. Stay safe.
The best time to have frozen your credit reports at all three agencies was many many years ago. The second best time is right now. Not tomorrow. Now.
Wish I would have known to do this a while ago, I am currently trying to do it now but all three are telling me that my info doesn't match their records and to call them. Too bad they are all closed right now so I can't call them, definitely doesn't bode well for me.
so when you freeze your credit your credit score can't go up either?
Paying things on time has no effect at that point then right?
No, it just prevents banks, etc from checking your credit score/rating, which prevents anyone from opening a new account under your name. When YOU want to open an account, you temporarily unfreeze it for a couple days so that the institution you're opening an account at can check, and then refreeze it.
The credit agencies will continue monitoring how much credit you have and how well you pay your bills and adjust your score accordingly. Freezing has no effect on that.