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ReadersSpeak
Unlock Your
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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