The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) announced this week that it intends to increase the scrutiny on data brokers to better protect service members, law enforcement officials, domestic violence victims, senior citizens, and other populations from surveillance, doxing, fraud, and threats of violence when cyber threat actors purchase personal and financial information from data brokers

Credit reporting agencies TransUnion, Experian, and Equifax have extended their programs to provide consumers with the ability to access their credit reports for free on a weekly, rather than yearly, basis.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act legally requires credit reporting agencies to provide consumers with access to their credit report for free once per year

Federal legislation recently took effect that prohibits consumer reporting agencies from charging a fee to place or remove (lift) a security freeze on a consumer credit report in response to a consumer request. The “Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act” (the Act) was passed on May 24, 2018. The Act includes important updates to the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) that may in turn affect the information that businesses provide to customers or clients in response to a data breach or similar security incident.
Continue Reading Federal Legislation Enables Consumers to Obtain Security Freezes on Credit Reports Free of Charge

A new Harris Poll for the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA), which called 1,006 U.S. adults for the report, shows interesting statistics regarding American adults’ attitudes and fears about identity theft and financial loss as a result of cyber intrusions. The poll’s conclusion is that 48 percent of U.S. adults believe that identity theft will