Want to prevent potential identity theft and minimize or stop unwanted solicitations, especially from credit companies? Read on to learn how.

Cost: Free in terms of money. Takes one to two hours of effort to set up and five minutes if you need to unfreeze your account.

Data Protection Impact: Very High

It is hard to escape the stories of data breaches as they seemingly appear daily in our news. A data breach means that someone broke into a company’s system or systems and stole personal information contained in the system. Companies are legally obligated by law to report data breaches. Though some companies take steps to mitigate the damage; for example, Equifax offered credit monitoring for a year for free, there are currently few options for you to protect information about yourself once someone has broken into (hacked) a company’s system. The best way to protect yourself and minimize the possibility of identity theft - a real problem in the United States - is to freeze your credit report files. After the huge Equifax data breach in 2017, there was a public outcry which resulted in making the freezing of accounts free to each of us.

Check if you are affected by the data breach by clicking here: http://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/