5 Things You Can Do to Protect Yourself After the Massive OPM Data Breach

The Office of Personnel Management is sending notices next week to the 4 million current and former federal employees whose personal data was compromised in a massive hacking incident discovered in April. The agency will offer free credit monitoring and identity theft protection services to those affected, but here are five things you can do in the meantime while you wait to hear more, according to OPM.

1. Check your financial accounts for any suspicious activity, and report anything out of the ordinary to your financial institution.
2. Request a free credit report from AnnualCreditReport.com (note: as of Friday morning, the website was down for maintenance, so you may need to the toll free number instead, at: 877-322-8228)
3. Review the Federal Trade Commission’s information on identity theft. The agency offers a list of potential issues that can crop up if someone has stolen your identity, along with details on how to resolve each one. This can range from closing bogus accounts opened in your name to clearing your name of criminal charges incurred by the impersonator.
4. Ask TransUnion to put a fraud alert on your credit line so that creditors will contact you before opening a new account in your name. TransUnion can be reached at 1-800-680-7289.
5. If you discover your information has indeed been misused, report it to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center and the FTC. 

(Image via Hamik / Shutterstock.com)