Author Topic: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?  (Read 2496 times)

zestforlife

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Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« on: March 27, 2017, 09:26:27 AM »
I recently learned that a health facility my husband went to this year had a data breach: medical records, birthdays, social security numbers. The data breach happened months ago, and they are only now alerting us.

Does anyone have experience with preventing tax fraud? Credit freezes?

I'm considering freezing our credit, and then calling to get a one time pin to use for new credit applications. Is this hard to do?

As far as preventing tax fraud, we haven't filed our taxes yet (working on it), but I've read about creating an account with the IRS and also getting a pin that you use when you file your taxes. Does anyone know how this would work when married filing jointly? Would we have to each get a pin and file with both pins? I'm worried that someone may have already filed taxes fraudulently with his info, is there any way of checking other than filing our taxes?

I'm also wondering: if someone has access to my husband's social and other info, how hard would it be to gain access to our bank account? Is there any way prevent this from happening?

Thanks for your thoughts!

*Edited to add: the data was targeted with ransomware, apparently.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2017, 09:30:04 AM by zestforlife »

caracarn

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Re: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« Reply #1 on: March 27, 2017, 09:31:18 AM »
I have subscribed to LifeLock for a couple years due to a malicious and creative ex that we were concerned might try to open fraudulent accounts etc.  While not inexpensive a service like this is helpful because it tracks things by your social security number and any attempts to open new accounts etc. are brought to your attention in a day or two.  They will also spend up to $1 million dollars in any legal fees to help you get things cleaned up if it gets messy.  This is my recommendation.

zestforlife

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Re: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« Reply #2 on: March 27, 2017, 09:57:32 AM »
Thank you for the recommendation. I haven't heard very good things about LifeLock, so I was considering going the DIY route. I'll look more into it.
« Last Edit: March 27, 2017, 10:04:38 AM by zestforlife »

conpewter

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Re: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« Reply #3 on: March 27, 2017, 10:39:25 AM »
Depending on how often you get new credit lines, I think freezing your credit would be prudent.  I haven't had a data breach like that (to my knowledge) but I'm thinking of freezing credit just to be safe.  I have heard it can be pretty hard/hassle to un-freeze it and does cost a bit of money depending on your state.

I have lifelock through my company, but I get faster alerts through credit karma (which is free) than through lifelock.

GreenSheep

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Re: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2017, 05:39:17 AM »
radicalpersonalfinance.com had a good podcast on this topic not long ago... say, within the past month or so. Lots of ideas from the very obvious (cover your hand when typing in your PIN) to the not-at-all-obvious and much more involved, but clearly explained by him.

marion10

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Re: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2017, 07:03:02 AM »
We had a credit freeze in place before I was exposed to a data breach. It has worked very well.

NinjaSalad

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Re: Data breach and protecting our family... thoughts?
« Reply #6 on: March 30, 2017, 07:50:37 PM »
I recently had to unfreeze my credit for a mortgage application - it was a fairly simple process and was complete within a couple of days. Just be sure to keep records of your login info for each of the credit bureaus and you are good to go. If you lose your login it delays the process significantly.