Protect your credit and personal information from identity theft, fraudulent accounts, and data breaches. Learn how to spot warning signs, use credit freezes and fraud alerts, monitor your identity, and recover if your information is misused.
Credit monitoring watches one or more credit reports for changes such as new accounts, inquiries, late-payment reporting, or personal-information updates. Broader identity monitoring can also scan other data sources for signs that personal information is being misused, and some paid […]
Child identity theft occurs when someone uses a child’s identifying information—such as a Social Security number, name, address, or date of birth—to obtain credit, benefits, services, or other value. Because minors usually do not have an established credit history, misuse
If an account on your credit report resulted from identity theft, the Fair Credit Reporting Act gives you a special blocking process that is different from an ordinary credit-report dispute. Once a complete qualifying request reaches a nationwide credit reporting
Exposure of personal information does not automatically mean identity theft has already occurred. Match the response to the data involved. Immediately change exposed passwords and reused credentials, secure your email, and enable multifactor authentication. When a Social Security number or
Identity-theft warning signs include charges or withdrawals you did not authorize, credit accounts or application inquiries you cannot explain, bills or collection contacts for debts that are not yours, missing statements, medical claims you did not receive, tax or wage
Identity-theft recovery starts by securing email and financial accounts that can still be used, contacting companies where fraud occurred, preserving evidence, and reporting confirmed identity theft through IdentityTheft.gov. When new-account fraud is a risk, freeze Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion and
A fraud alert and a credit freeze both reduce the risk of new-account identity theft, but a freeze creates the stronger barrier. Fraud alerts leave your reports accessible and require extra identity verification before new credit is opened. Security freezes
