The following message was sent to all students, faculty, and staff on Monday, September 11th regarding the recent Equifax Data Breach.
Equifax Data Breach Information
You may have heard in the news about the recent data breach of Equifax, one of the big three credit reporting agencies in the US. I am writing about this because these sort of data breaches are frequently followed by scam emails, websites, phone calls, etc.
These scams often purport to come from the company who has been breached, and ask you to click a link, reply with information regarding credit monitoring services, or even call you and then ask for sensitive information in order to verify your account. What makes this more confusing, is that there are most likely going to be legitimate emails coming from Equifax as well as fraudulent messages purporting to come from them.
So what should you do if you are concerned about the Equifax data breach?
First and foremost, you should check your credit report - and only through the AnnualCreditReport.com site. This is a site setup by the three major credit reporting agencies in order to comply with the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, to allow everyone to access their credit report for free once per year.
Second, be on the lookout for suspicious activity on any financial accounts you have. Check your bank/credit card statements regularly. Your bank or credit union may offer some sort of free credit monitoring services as well.
Third, if you are actually impacted by identity theft (from this breach or any other source), see the Federal Trade Commission's website on dealing with the aftermath of identity theft. It is available at: https://www.identitytheft.gov
For more information on the Equifax data breach, see the article below from the New York Times:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/07/business/equifax-cyberattack.html
Note: This is a proactive warning about a large scale data breach. SUNY New Paltz doesn't have any business relationship to Equifax, but with the scale of the breach, we felt it worth sending an announcement.
Paul Chauvet
Information Security Officer
State University of New York at New Paltz