Has Your SSN Been Exposed?
 

You can search here.

If it has been, be sure to freeze your credit with all three agencies. It is easy and not a big deal before you are an identity theft victim.

Links to the credit agencies are listed on the page linked above. Generally, it is a good idea to freeze your credit anyway. You can always unfreeze it on demand when someone needs it, then freeze it again.

I've always avoided sites like the above. A good way for someone to get my PII would be to take advantage of fear after a publicized breach to convince me to give it to them. "Worried your SSN might have been exposed? Fill in your full name and birth date then hit Submit."

The site above might be totally legitimate but personally, I would not provide that information.

Curious what types of services others use to monitor for nefarious activity on your accounts. In addition to personal measures such as strong passwords and changing passwords, freezing credit through the three main bureaus - do you use a monitoring service or third party firm and if so who? Thanks.

Agree.

"give another site your information and hope it's legit & secure"..........pass.

Go right to the agency……..

Rather than freeze my credit cards I put a block on my SS#

That is generally a good and conservative plan.

This site only asks for a state where you have lived and the YEAR of your birth. For an identification to be unique, it would need name, city and state of birth, and the full birthdate. Here it is only asking for enough information to find possible matches, which are listed. You don't identify any of them as being yours.

FWIW. Mine was exposed, but not using my state of birth, only a state in which I previously lived. Three of the four people whose names I tried showed up.

You can open a free Credit Karma account. It will list all current credit card/loans and if inquiries were made.

Several of my credit cards and banks now offer an identity alert services so enable that feature if available.

Apparently, virtually everyone's information was disclosed.

The hacking group, which is called USDoD, said it stole the records of 2.9 billion records from National Public Data, which provides personal information to companies and private investigators doing background checks.

So safe assume your information is out there.

How do we know that site is not a scam site ?

What’s the old saying....the easiest car to steal or house to rob is the ones with the keys in it!

People....exercise some common sense, don’t unilaterally give up your SS# and personal info to anyone unless you’re 100% and have properly vetted. Do some due diligence!

2.9 billion records, not people.

You don't understand the problem. Your house has already been robbed. Your SSN is very probably exposed. You have given it to employers, insurance companies, doctors, dentists, your cell phone provider, (or most of those). You can query the link.

If/when you do, it will show you the last 2 digits of your SSN and various addresses where you have lived.

Didn’t one of credit freezer’s get hacked year or two ago?

Do yourself a favor and lock your credit with all three agencies, anyway. At your age, do you really need to open any new credit cards? If you think it's time to buy your 3rd house in The Villages, you can always unlock your credit for a day to add a new mortgage.