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I’ve spent most of my life in Florida, where hurricanes are a sad fact of life. Here’s what few non-Floridians know: After a hurricane, the weather is beautiful. The skies are clear, and the temperature is perfect.
It’s often that way in the financial world where I’ve spent more than two decades as a CPA and financial counselor. Consider the massive Equifax data breach, which was first revealed a year ago this month.
While no one is sure how much data hackers made off with, 146 million Americans had their personal information exposed. When you consider there were only 323 million Americans in the entire country, that’s a record-setting data breach.
The winds pick up
What made it even more startling is that Equifax is one of the Big Three credit bureaus. Along with Experian and TransUnion, they collect details on nearly every debt you ring up, from credit card balances to mortgages. This information determines your credit score.
If any business should be air-tight with your personal data, it’s this one. Even worse, at the time of the breach, Equifax was selling a service called the Complete Premier Plan. For $19.95 a month, it promised to “Help monitor your credit and Social Security Number” — for, you know, hackers trying to steal that precious information.
