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            Growth Potential                                       Commonsense ID protection

                                                                             irectly after  AT&T's March 30, 2024, dis-
                                                                             closure that 73 million  AT&T customers'
           With a BCP Loan                                         D breach, Odysseas Papadimitriou, CEO of
                                                                             accounts had been compromised in a data
                                                                   WalletHub and former senior director at CapitalOne,
                                                                   offered the following five tips for readers of The Green
                                                                   Sheet to give to merchants who may voice concerns
                                                                   about the incident:
                                                                     1. Sign up for 24/7 credit monitoring: This way, you'll
                                                                     find out immediately if someone tries to open an ac-
                                                                     count in your name.

                                                                     2. Enable two-factor authentication: If you have an
                                                                     AT&T account, start by changing your password and
                                                                     enabling two-factor authentication. Then, enable
                                                                     two-factor authentication on your email and finan-
                                                                     cial accounts. This will make it harder for fraudsters
                                                                     to infiltrate other aspects of your life.
                                                                     3. A freeze is better than an alert: If you really want to
                                                                     protect yourself from fraudulent borrowing, freeze
                                                                     your three major credit reports (Equifax, Experian
                                                                     and TransUnion). This will prevent anyone but you
                                                                     from accessing them, thus making it impossible to
                                                                     take out a loan or line of credit. A fraud alert, in con-
                                                                     trast, doesn't do much.
                                                                     4. Suppress fraudulent info: While you can dispute
                                                                     run-of-the-mill credit report inaccuracies, it's best
                                                                     to use a process called "suppression"/"blocking" to
                                                                     get rid of negative info resulting from identity theft.
                                                                     This makes it so the records in question can't reap-
                                                                     pear after they're initially removed.
                                                                     5. Never respond to unsolicited requests for informa-
                                                                     tion: Don't be surprised if you see an uptick in unso-
                                                                     licited calls and emails requesting personal informa-
                                       BOCA                          tion. Never answer if you didn't ask to be contacted.
                                       CAPITAL                       6. Consider premium identity protection: There's
                                       PARTNERS                      only so much you can do to protect your identity for
                                                                     free, and with the increased sophistication of fraud-
                                                                     sters, consider premium identity protection features
             Get a loan from $100,000 to                             like identity theft insurance, premium identity alerts
                                                                     and access to identity restoration experts.
           $5,000,000 for your ISO today                           Data security next steps


                                                                   The payments industry has come a long way since
                                                                   the  Payment  Card  Industry  Data  Security  Standard
                 Call Now: 844-531-4957                            was introduced in 2004. What next steps should
               bocacapitalpartners.com                             the industry take to make our protection of sensi-
                                                                   tive data even more effective? Share  your insights at
                                                                   greensheet@greensheet.com.

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