8/17/2023 0 Comments Equifax credit liftIndeed, I have long assailed the KBA industry as creating a false sense of security that is easily bypassed by fraudsters. In general, the data being asked about in these KBA quizzes is culled from public records, meaning that this information likely is publicly available in some form - either digitally or in-person. It then asked a series of four security questions - so-called “knowledge-based authentication” or KBA questions designed to see if I could recall bits about my recent financial history. MyEquifax said it couldn’t verify that my email address belonged to the Brian Krebs at that SSN and DOB. This has been the reality for years, and was so well before Equifax announced its big 2017 breach. SSN and DOB data is widely available for sale in the cybercrime underground on almost all U.S. The next page asked me enter my SSN and date of birth, and to share a phone number (sharing was optional, so I didn’t). I chose an old email address that I knew wasn’t directly tied to my real-life identity. The portal asked me for an email address and suggested a longish, randomized password, which I accepted. Seeking to manage my own credit freeze at as I’d done in years past, I was steered toward creating an account at, which I was shocked to find I did not previously possess. But Equifax has changed a few things since then. In the wake of Equifax’s epic 2017 data breach impacting some 148 million Americans, many people did freeze their credit files at the big three in response. A freeze makes it much harder for identity thieves to open new lines of credit in your name. state can now freeze their credit files for free with Equifax and two other major bureaus ( Trans Union and Experian). Unfortunately, if you don’t already have an account at the credit bureau’s new myEquifax portal, it may be simple for identity thieves to lift an existing credit freeze at Equifax and bypass the PIN armed with little more than your, name, Social Security number and birthday.Ĭonsumers in every U.S. I'll go ahead and do a temporary lift again, but this time I will be sure to check back a day or two after it's scheduled to expire to make sure the report is really frozen again.Most people who have frozen their credit files with Equifax have been issued a numeric Personal Identification Number (PIN) which is supposed to be required before a freeze can be lifted or thawed. If you schedule a new temporary lift, it will replace the temporary lift you have already scheduled." So, I don't think it's just weird wording on the status page - I think the "temporary lift" that was set to expire in November is actually still in place. it's February 2021, so that "temporary freeze" should be well over! When I go through the steps to temporarily unfreeze it now, it says, "You have already scheduled a temporary lift of the security freeze on your Equifax credit report. But on the Equifax site, the current status says, "You have temporarily lifted your Equifax credit report freeze until November 7, 2020". I needed to unfreeze for a few days again now, so I logged back into all three to temporarily lift the freeze again.Įxperian and TransUnion were fine. Just a PSA - I had unfrozen my credit report at all three big bureaus (Experian, Equifax, TransUnion) for a few days back in November.
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