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It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

krebsonsecurity.com

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Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#211

Post by xienze »

rwestergren wrote: post #178
itissid wrote: post #159

FWIW 1. Freeze all your credit with experian, equifax and transunion 2. Opt out of them selling your info: https://consumerprivacy.experian.com/ https://myprivacy.equifax.com/opt-in-opt-out/personal-info https://service.transunion.com/dss/ccpa_optout.page

Experian allows unfreezing via their site in the article. If someone can easily recreate your account, they can unfreeze it which makes it pretty useless.

Yes, but if you have an account you’ll at least get an email notifying you that your account’s email address has changed (as a result of someone recreating your account). That’s how I was tipped off to someone trying to buy a car in my name (by pulling on the thread of calling customer support asking wtf I got that email). So it’s very useful to at least have an Experian account so you can know when someone is trying to go after you this way.

Now granted, it’s possible that the attacker won’t change your email address first, in which case I’m not sure if you get an email stating that your credit was unfrozen. But it’s likely they’ll change it in order to make it harder for you to mitigate the damage in a timely manner.

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#212

Post by emodendroket »

bradley13 wrote: post #208

Stepping back, and looking at the situation as a whole: the real problem is a lack of privacy laws. Banks, businesses and employers should be prohibited from sharing your personal information with third parties. I live in Switzerland, where this is the case. Even the government doesn't get this information. If the government thinks you're cheating on your taxes, they have to use warrants and follow the same procedure…

I would say this problem would also be solved if we stopped pretending that a Social Security number was a serious substitute for secure national ID.

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#213

Post by emodendroket »

namdnay wrote: post #209
bradley13 wrote: post #208

Stepping back, and looking at the situation as a whole: the real problem is a lack of privacy laws. Banks, businesses and employers should be prohibited from sharing your personal information with third parties. I live in Switzerland, where this is the case. Even the government doesn't get this information. If the government thinks you're cheating on your taxes, they have to use warrants and follow the same procedure…

“Everything works just fine” It definitely worked great for a lot of dictators, tax cheats and the sort… I think Switzerland is a great example of why complete privacy isn’t fair on ordinary taxpayers - it allows the ultra-rich to hide what they owe

Additionally the “international pressure” the OP alludes to is since Swiss banks were the banks of choice international crime, including whichever activity you think might be most heinous.

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#214

Post by ClimaxGravely »

ISL wrote: post #25
atrettel wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way to opt out of credit reporting. Lenders report the information to the credit bureaus, typically all three of the big ones, so if you want no information reported, simply close all your credit cards and loans, etc. and place credit freezes on your credit reports. I don't think that "increased competition" will work here. We are not customers of the credit bureaus. We are the product. The customers are…

A statutory fine of $50k per compromised account would get the attention of the credit bureaus. (It might drive them out of business, but it sure would get their attention.)

I don't want to get ahead of myself but currently that seems to be having an effect on Vancouver AirBnB's as we're starting to see craigslist posts like these : https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/17t6tes/posted_o...

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#215

Post by kelnos »

itissid wrote: post #159

FWIW 1. Freeze all your credit with experian, equifax and transunion 2. Opt out of them selling your info: https://consumerprivacy.experian.com/ https://myprivacy.equifax.com/opt-in-opt-out/personal-info https://service.transunion.com/dss/ccpa_optout.page

I just tried to visit the Equifax link you provided, and I got an error page. Amazing.

Oh man, actually looks like Equifax's entire website is down? Ouch.

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#216

Post by crotchfire »

emodendroket wrote: post #212
bradley13 wrote: post #208

Stepping back, and looking at the situation as a whole: the real problem is a lack of privacy laws. Banks, businesses and employers should be prohibited from sharing your personal information with third parties. I live in Switzerland, where this is the case. Even the government doesn't get this information. If the government thinks you're cheating on your taxes, they have to use warrants and follow the same procedure…

I would say this problem would also be solved if we stopped pretending that a Social Security number was a serious substitute for secure national ID.

There's an easy way to do that: pass a law exempting Social Security Numbers from all identity theft and fraud laws.

Make it completely legal and tort-free to lie about social security numbers anytime, anywhere, except when dealing directly with the government (i.e. filing your taxes).

That'll stop them being used, and right quick.

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#218

Post by mise_en_place »

namdnay wrote: post #209
bradley13 wrote: post #208

Stepping back, and looking at the situation as a whole: the real problem is a lack of privacy laws. Banks, businesses and employers should be prohibited from sharing your personal information with third parties. I live in Switzerland, where this is the case. Even the government doesn't get this information. If the government thinks you're cheating on your taxes, they have to use warrants and follow the same procedure…

“Everything works just fine” It definitely worked great for a lot of dictators, tax cheats and the sort… I think Switzerland is a great example of why complete privacy isn’t fair on ordinary taxpayers - it allows the ultra-rich to hide what they owe

Prior to 1913 the IRS didn't exist. The US seemed to do just fine before then. Tarrifs are the best way for the government to raise revenues. Especially when you are doing business with hostile countries like China. Please do educate yourself on US history before making such comments about privacy.

Re: It's still easy for anyone to become you at Experian

#219

Post by squeegmeister »

This happened to me and I ended up calling them to get them to reset my email. It hinged on me answering security questions correctly. Which btw, some of these were also wrong since my identity thief changed some addresses on my credit report. What a fucking mess
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