Starting September 21, 2018, all 3 major consumer credit bureaus will be required to offer free credit freezes to all Americans and their dependents. A credit freeze — also known as a “security freeze” — restricts access to a consumer's credit file, making it far more difficult for identity thieves to open new accounts in that person's name.
Many states allow the big three bureaus — Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — to charge a fee for placing or lifting a security freeze. But thanks to a federal law enacted earlier this year by Congress it will be free to freeze and unfreeze credit files throughout the United States.
There are dozens of private companies that specialize in providing consumer credit reports and scores to specific industries, including real estate brokers, landlords, insurers, debt buyers, employers, banks, casinos and retail stores. A handy PDF produced earlier this year by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) lists all of the known entities that maintain, sell or share credit data on U.S. citizens. The CFPB document links to websites for 46 different consumer credit reporting entities. Via numerous front-end Web sites, each of these mini credit bureaus serve thousands or tens of thousands of people who work in the above mentioned industries and who have the ability to pull credit and other personal data on Americans. In many cases, online access to look up data through these companies is secured by nothing more than a username and password that can be stolen or phished by cybercrooks and abused to pull privileged information on consumers. Access to some of these credit lookup services is supposed to be secured behind a login page, but often isn’t.
Read the full original article at Krebs on Security.
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