SSN Data Breaches and Points Hobby

[Panache]

The health insurance through my employer is with Anthem, and now it's another company in the string of hacks where private info was stolen. I am a bit more concerned here as actual addresses and SSNs seem to have been exposed.

I check my CR on Credit Karma several times a month, and have signed up for the All Clear ID that Home Depot offered last year. But with All Clear, I've only received alerts 1-2 months after new accounts were opened/not for inquiries.

Any other suggestions to be safe? Freeze credit reports? Will this mean it'll be a PITA to apply for new CCs?

 

[Matt]

Personally I just monitor them, there was a free service offered when Target occurred that alerts you to new pulls.

 

[grebel]

Panache, I'm in the same boat. We started with Anthem in January, just in time for the data breach. My wife's company is offering some sort of credit monitoring to everyone affected. Maybe check with your employer?

 

[Haley]

Since only huge breaches like this ever get reported it is best to assume your info is out there. Healthcare companies have no obligation to inform you of a data breach.

Criminals have learned to keep, gather, and cross reference data. Most people reuse passwords, email addresses have become more permanent than home addresses, and they may have also gotten authentication question answers.

The best thing you can do is change passwords to something that is secure. No repeats or variations. Disassociate the email address that might have been compromised in the breach from any accounts with value.

And I'll risk sounding like a broken record. Change your passwords.
And those authentication questions sites use. Do not give good/real answers. So much of what they ask is in the public record and searching is so damn easy, much of the rest is too easy to guess.
Favorite color: south of France
Where you met your spouse: blue cheese
Multi word nonsense answers. They can have meaning for you or you can create your own code (if the question asks for a name give a number and if a number give a place and so on).
Names are the worst, best friend, roommate, best man, childhood friend, first pet, favorite pet... So easy to just go through a list of popular names based on your age.

 

[grebel]

I agreed with all of the above! I'm guilty of making security questions legit questions. I need to change that. Last Pass has been excellent for truly unique random passwords. I don't know what I would do without it!

 

[Genuine Cheer]

I will second my love of LastPass. It changed everything from 3 variations of the same theme to a long litany of passwords I could never even guess. I now use it for all my security questions, too, which I was always suspicious of anyway.