Why only 12 months of Identity theft protection

[EDSAVE]

Hello, I received a letter from a former employer concerning a data breach. The letter explained what happened, and what information was involved. The information that has been impacted was Social Security number, driver's license number, passport number, name, address, and other government issued identification numbers that were on file. The former employer is offering complementary credit monitoring and identity theft protection services through IDX, a ZeroFox company. This protection will be available for 12 months after enrolling.

My question is why they are only offering 12 months of protection, my information has been leaked because of their poor cyber security measures and I will have to deal with this issue for the rest of my life. What can we as victims do to make the companies that were involved in a cyber security incident be responsible for the life of the person affected by the breach?

[GailL1]

@EDSAVE  - Sorry this has happened to you but it seems to be getting more and more common - I’m involved in the AT&T Breach of March 2024 - grrrrr

While the 12 months of ID protection is good, there are other things that you, and you alone, can do to keep down or find any individual breaches.  They should have also told you about these in that letter.  

1.  FREEZE your credit with all three major credit bureaus - Experian, TransUnion and Equifax.

2.  If you suspect there might be some personal infringement (or not), you can also place a fraud alert on these same credit bureaus.  You can pick one and go thru the process of a fraud alert (I used Equifax) and they will forward it to the other two and you will get a message or snail mail from each of them that this has been noted on your file.  I also believe that these last 12 months.

3.  A personal breach of your ID can also be reported to the Federal Trade Commission - 

USA.gov - Identity Theft  

FTC.gov - Identity Theft  

Make sure you are using 2-step identification process (or more) on all your financials 

Make sure you have strong passwords

Monitor everything - I also get a paper copy (or download and print it) of all my financials.

Use your security program on all your devices - some are free, some cost a bit a month, some credit card companies also offer this service - and many of them will alert you on if they find the info on the dark web which you have authorized them to monitor - the info you give to them to monitor is your choice.  

So - to answer your question - 12 months is all the company that has had the breach are required to cover for free to their customers since after the event has happens, it is up to us individually to do further protection. 

This is getting to be ridiculous - but technology is here to stay - It is a big problem - scammers and criminals are everywhere trying to get your info so protect yourself BEFORE it occurs - like doing the credit freeze.  You just unthaw it when you want to get a loan or a new credit card and then it is refrozen back in a few days. 

[GailL1]

ADDING one more step -

Monitor your credit reports - everybody gets at least (1) free each year and if you put on a fraud alert, you can get more annual ones free.  

If you see a problem REPORT it to the Credit Bureau immediately.  

[EDSAVE]

thanks for the great information, I have been working with a nonprofit called Identity theft resource center (www.idtheftcenter.org) they are extremely nice to work with and walked me through many of the items you suggested, a few other steps they suggested I do are…

File a report with the local police department

File a report with the Internet crime compliance center (IC3.GOV)

Apply for a pin number from the internal revenue service for tax filing

Set up an account at the Social Security website

Set up an account at Myeverify.uscis.gov  this site allows you to place a lock on your Social Security number so no one can use it to apply for a job.

Also there are 2 lessor known credit agencies you may need to a place credit freeze (Innovis and Clarity services) 

Hopefully we are all learning some valuable information here on how to protect ourselves, but I would like to make the companies were the breach occurred liable for more than 12 months of security monitoring, maybe reaching out to our local senators would be a good place to start.

Thanks again information you provided.