Here’s why credit freezes are hot this summer

Teach members these easy-to-implement steps for protecting themselves from fraud.

Data breaches have been all over the news lately, first with the announcement of the settlementof the 2017 Equifax breach and more recently with reports of a new major data breach at Capital One involving at least 100 million citizens, 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers. This enormous data breach targeted consumers and small businesses that applied for credit card products during a span that ranged from 2005 to early 2019. Credit scores, limits, balances and payment history, as well as fragments of transactions data from a total of 23 days during 2016, 2017 and 2018 were also stolen, according to CNBC.com.

Thanks to quick investigative action by the FBI, a suspect in the Capital One breach has already been apprehended. While the stolen data in question is not believed to have been sold off to dark web merchants yet, your members will likely have concerns about their credit health and financial safety in the wake of this incident.

To help put your members at ease and also protect them from future data breaches, consider educating them on how to set up a credit freeze.

 

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