The best proactive defense against potential credit abuse and identity theft as a result of this data breach is a credit freeze. It’s been proven time and again as the most effective way to stop anyone tampering with your hard earned credit score, opening credit cards or loans in your name and other credit related abuse. Credit freeze stops anyone from accessing credit information. The downside is that it costs around $10, needs to be done with each credit scoring agency individually, and you would not be able to apply for new credit cards or other lines of credit while it is in place. You can “thaw” your credit at any time for free.

Right now National Consumer Law Center is calling on Equifax to pay for the freezes, but you do not have to wait - requesting it directly from all the major credit agencies, including, ironically, Equifax itself.

You can read more about it here - https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0497-credit-freeze-faqs

https://www.equifaxsecurity2017.com/consumer-notice/

Online forms for requesting credit freeze Equifax - https://www.freeze.equifax.com/Freeze/jsp/SFF_PersonalIDInfo.jsp Transunion - https://www.transunion.com/credit-freeze/place-credit-freeze Experian - https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html Innovis - https://www.innovis.com/securityFreeze/index