Capital One Compromise (Hack): Now What?

In the aftermath of Capital One’s announcement on Monday of the compromise of approximately 100 million credit card applications, exposing roughly 77,000 bank account numbers and 140,000 Social Security numbers, many clients may have questions and concerns.

What can you do? Here are some tips disseminated by hubwallet:

1. Sign up for 24/7 credit monitoring – This way, you’ll find out immediately if someone tries to open an account in your name.
2. Enable Two-Factor Authentication – Use another layer of protection when logging into your email account and financial websites.
3. A Freeze Is Better Than an Alert – It probably isn’t necessary in this case, but if you really want to protect yourself from fraudulent borrowing, you can freeze your accounts with Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. This will help prevent anyone but you from accessing them, thus making it problematic to obtain a loan. A fraud alert, in contrast, doesn’t actually do much. 
4. Suppress Fraudulent Info – Get rid of negative info resulting from identity theft. 
5. Never Respond to Unsolicited Requests for Information – While this is obvious, it still happens. Never answer if you didn’t ask to be contacted.
   

This Capital One case is still fresh, and no one yet knows what the fallout will be from this breach. Should you have any questions or concerns regarding the breach, you can place them in the comments below, but please DO NOT include any personal information!!

Of course, as always, the preferred way to get questions answered is to contact a competent consumer advocacy attorney of you choice. Many bankruptcy and foreclosure defense attorneys fall into this category.