Why Your Personal Information is at Risk

Not a month goes by without seeing a headline that such and such company was hacked and consumer data was exposed to the dark web. In fact, the credit bureau Experian sent me an email with this exact message not even one week ago. If you don’t believe you have been affected, unfortunately, you’re probably living in a daydream because with all the companies that ask for Personally Identifiable Information (PII), it is becoming impossible for companies to keep this information private.

I’m not going to spend my time discussing strategies to prevent this from happening—like using a “dumb” phone or only paying with cash. Instead, I’ll submit to you that being organized, having lists, and setting up reminders are simple keys to stop the evil doers from making your life an absolute nightmare.

Credit Freeze: Your First Line of Financial Defense

Whether or not you have recently been exposed to compromised data, the first step I would recommend is to place a free credit freeze on all three credit monitoring services: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. They are all different companies and need to be done one at a time.

A credit freeze is essentially a way to lock down your credit such that if someone tries to apply for a mortgage, car loan, or credit card in your name, this will not be possible. The websites of each company have a button on their homepage to place a security freeze, and in less than 10 minutes per company, your credit can be locked.

One key aspect is having an organized system to remember the PINs and passwords—it is very, very, very difficult to unfreeze your credit without your credentials. (As an aside, my wife and I use a password management firm to store all of our passwords, but of course, there is a risk that someone hacks into that site and steals our data.)

Strategic Credit Report Monitoring: A Calendar-Based Approach

I would go one step further and set up a calendar reminder system to ensure that you are checking your credit reports throughout the year. You are allowed to check your credit report once per year per credit reporting agency at no charge via www.annualcreditreport.com. If you check all three reports on January 1^st, you will not be able to perform another free check until the following year so my advice is to check one report every 4 months.

I use Google calendars to alert me so that I am periodically keeping an eye on my credit reports throughout the year in case anything looks odd.

January: Check the Equifax report
May: Check the TransUnion report
September: Check the Experian report

What am I looking for? It’s pretty common that I will see incorrect phone numbers or addresses, but the most crucial data is to make sure there is not an account open that I don’t recognize that will most negatively affect my credit score. The faster you spot a problem, the faster it is to fix it.

Cybersecurity Starts with Organization

Am I confident that these steps alone will prevent a problem? Unfortunately, my cynical self is not that naïve that simple solutions will solve a complex problem.

What is to stop someone from calling my bank pretending to be me? Or using my Social Security Number and email to attempt to break into a financial site? As we are taught in cybersecurity courses, people are the weakest link in a cyber security chain.

Building a Bulletproof Financial Protection System

It’s also important to be organized and know which financial institutions custody your accounts. When the Bank of Pluto sends you an email about a problem with your account, you can confidently click Delete.

While I generally keep track of the bills in our household, my wife and I review our financial accounts each year so that she does not get taken advantage of by a financial institution pretending to need her help in accessing our money.

Put That on Your List: The Organizational Advantage

Once you set up the credit freeze, have a system to check your credit reports, and stay organized and vigilant with your financial accounts. You can cross these items off your list once and for all (aside from periodically changing passwords)—something which makes everyone happy.

While it does take some time to set up a system and maneuver these steps, it’s better than being worried every day about losing all your money to a sophisticated hack.

So the next time you get an email saying that your PII information has been stolen and it’s being sold on the dark web to foreign hackers, you can remain calm knowing that you have put up a solid defense.