Massive Data Breach Exposes Billions: Protect Yourself Now!

peace guys welcome back to another episode of the money codes my name is Joelle and I want to talk about what's on the screen right here which is a pretty big headline massive data breach exposed countless Social Security numbers and personal info so now as you can see on the screen your social security number along with 2.7 billion others is now up on the Internet because of a DAT so I want to talk about the implications because it does seem like headlines like this they come out like one once a year if not once every 6 months there's always some sort of data leak and if all of our information is out here in this ether how do we protect ourselves what are the implications so let's talk about that on today's episode of the money codes so here's the deal the national public data a company that gathers a ton of personal information got hacked and now nearly three billion records including Social Security numbers are floating around the dark web if you're like me the first thought is what does this mean for my security that's what we're going to break down today let's talk about what a data breach like this really means so companies like national public data they collect their information and they stored in huge databases I talked about these data aggregators a whole bunch on this channel some of you guys may be familiar but when one of these databases get hacked is basically like a gold mine for identity thieves because if you really think about it with your social with your full name with your address people can do some serious damage if they know what they're doing and if it's on the dark web these guys know know what they're doing I'm talking about opening up credit cards taking out loans insurance policies like it gets crazy when you hear the stories of what people are able to do when information is taken through identity theft and unfortunately this is not the first time I've even discussed this on this channel uh the big ones were Equifax data breach back in 2017 the capital 1 breach back in 2019 they were big but this is on a whole different level so here's how it went down a group called The us do and this is not talking about the Department of Defense right it's a different group they hacked the national public data and stole over 277 gigs of sensitive data and what they tried to do was they tried to sell it for 3.5 million but that didn't work maybe they didn't find a buyer I don't know so what they did was they started to dump the information on the dark web for free and once again if you are a longtime subscriber you should know what the dark web is if not I put a link above my head so you guys can see what the dark web is and how to protect yourself from the dark web uh these are for people that have been victims of identity theft before definitely check out that video if you haven't already because there's so many different companies out there that have our data whether it's Banks where there's Lexus Nexus where there it's all these third party data aggregators it's just a matter of time before another leak or another breach or another hack whatever you want to call it but when it happens how can we protect ourselves what can we do do we need to panic every time this happens how do we respond to these headlines in a mature way I've told you guys about how there was a young guy who tried to get a job and because he didn't realize he was a victim of identity theft he had a job offer revoked right these are things that happen in real life so if your identity gets tied up in fraudulent activities that's going to cause some serious headaches when you're trying to make those big Financial moves so now let's talk about actionable advice so here's what you can do here's the plan so number one I want you to watch your accounts closely look at your credit reports and look for things like accounts that you don't recognize check your balances look at your statements some of you guys are registered with notifications but still it does not hurt to just manually go ahead and review your accounts make sure to go to annualcreditreport.com and get a free copy of your credit report you can do this every single week number two I want you guys to freeze your credit reports and I want to emphasize this don't let anyone tell you otherwise freezing your credit reports is absolutely free and I'm going to show you how to do that I'm going to show you the resources on how to do that so now let's clear some things up I was actually texting one of my friends and we were talking about this story and I told him yeah in these situations it's a good idea to make sure your credit reports are frozen because if you're not actively applying for loans actively applying for you know jobs insurance if nothing really is going on in your life keep this thing Frozen and when it's time for you to do let's say a credit application you can go in there unfreeze your account do what you got to do and then freeze it back up so I'm talking to him about it he's like yeah that's why I PID I think I forget what the amount he said but he's like yeah that's why I pay TransUnion some dos to do that and I'm looking a little bit confused because I'm like wait a hold on why are you paying the credit bureaus to freeze your account like are you trying to get any other additional features or what he was like no I had to pay 20 some dollars to freeze my credit bureaus and I'm still looking confused I'm like bro you don't have to pay anybody you don't have to pay Experian eifax or TransUnion to freeze so I gave him a hard time about that but I'm I'm telling you the same information that I told him there's a whole bunch of upsells the credit bureaus will love to sell you on and I'm not knocking that if there are things in those upses in those products and services that you need go for it right but if all you want to do is just freeze your credit reports you don't have to pay anybody to do that so let's talk about the difference between a credit freeze and a credit lock a credit freeze is free and it stops anyone from accessing your credit report until you decide to unfreeze it you can do this with experience Equifax and TR Jun and in my opinion like I said before if you're not trying to do any moves right now you're not trying to apply for anything you're not trying to move jobs or do anything like that keep your accounts Frozen just keep them Frozen it's honestly one of the best ways that you can protect yourself again for free now you have credit locks and credit locks are similar but they're usually a part of a paid service the bureaus like to sell this as Extra Protection but honestly I think a freeze it does the job it does the job and it does what it needs to do so here here's the links to freeze your credit reports for Experian I'm going to put that on the screen here is the link for Equifax and here is the link for Transunion and how to freeze your credit reports with TransUnion if this video has helped you make sure to hit the like button and share it with someone who needs to see this and don't forget to subscribe for more tips on how to protect your financial future before you head out last but not least make sure to subscribe to the money codes Insider Community the link is down in the description it's where you can get the latest and greatest when it comes to Credit Finance and protecting your wealth it's a place where you'll get your questions answered connect with like-minded individuals and get access to exclusive content that you won't see on YouTube like the master class that we're launching on Sunday 6 p.m. Eastern Standard where we're going to be showing you guys it's going to be three weeks the first one is this Sunday and we're going to be showing you guys how to fight back against the Deb collection companies trust me guys you don't want to miss this it's absolutely free you can join by clicking the link down in the description and waiting for Sunday 600 p.m. eastern time for us to go live all right guys that's the end of the video hope you enjoyed I'll check you guys in the next video have a good one peace [Music] [Music]