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Credit Karma To Launch Free ID Monitoring Following Equifax Hack (reuters.com)

Posted by msmash on from the some-relief dept.

Credit Karma is launching a new free service that will alert customers if their identity data has been compromised in hacks, the San Francisco-based fintech company said on Friday in the wake of massive breach at credit monitoring agency Equifax. From a report: The new ID monitoring service is being tested and will be available in October, the company said on Friday. Similar to services offered by Symantec-owned LifeLock, CreditKarma will keep track of data breaches and tell customers if they are one of the victims. Customers can then check to use the company's credit monitoring services and flag suspicious activities. The company said it was accelerating the launch of the new service in response to the large data breach at Equifax, where thieves may have stolen personal information of 143 million Americans.

6 of 24 comments (clear)

  1. Why? by arth1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They're doing this out of the goodness of their heart?
    Or, is "free" perhaps not entirely true?

    1. Re:Why? by Szeraax · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you've never used CreditKarma, then you don't know. They advertise credit cards and other crap.

      This year, they launched a free tax filing service that doesn't try to sell you any crap. Worked quickly and easily and transferred all my info to state without any hassle.

      I don't have a problem with their LifeLock equivalent and look forward to continuing to use them.

  2. Maybe a silver lining soon by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If literally half the SSNs in the US are compromised, maybe we can eliminate them as a means of identification.

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    1. Re:Maybe a silver lining soon by burtosis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      +1 to this. They are fine as a unique identifier, but using them for any authentication should be a criminal offense.

    2. Re:Maybe a silver lining soon by Actually,+I+do+RTFA · · Score: 3, Interesting

      They're tied into a verification system that has only knowledge of the ID as proof. While it's possible to change that, easy to replace the whole system than deal with adding verification to the various systems.

      Plus, it's hardly futureproof, since it's so used up (over, what 70% of possible SSNs are currently active) that they are reusing SSNs.

      Frankly, having a global id seems pretty bad.

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  3. Re:why bother? by reboot246 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Rodney Dangerfield said his wife's credit card was stolen but he decided not to report it since the thief was spending much less than his wife did.