Was your Social Security number part of a massive data breach?

• Hack of background check company leaked 3 billion records
• Social Security numbers, birth dates and history of addresses for sale on dark web
• Online tool shows you how to see if you or family is affected
• Advice: Freeze credit and safeguard accounts with multi-factor authentication

(WSPA) – The latest data breach of a background check company is so massive, we would all be foolish not to take this seriously.  In this, 7NEWS Consumer Exclusive, we explain your best counterattack strategy against these hackers.

Until someone swipes your credit card, takes out a car loan in your name or taps into your bank account, most off us go on in life with our digital guard down.

It’s not that we’re unaware of the countless data breaches, it’s that, by now, many of us have become a bit numb.

“I feel like those happen just about every day,” Robert Bacon, in Greenville, said.

But the latest hack is so massive and potentially damaging, it’s not your father’s data breach, though as Bacon learned, chances are you, or someone in your family has been hit.

“This is my grandfather,” he said looking at a database of people who have been hacked.

Before we explain how to see if your name is among the 3 billion records compromised, here’s what you need to know about the breach.

Who was breached and what was taken

National Public Data , a company that does credit and criminal background checks for things like job interviews said they were hacked twice this year and the scope is just coming to light after showing up on the dark web.

“We saw that the original database was for sale for $3.5 million on a popular breach website,” Ryan Montgomery, with the cyber security firm Pentester , said.

Montgomery said it’s not just the quantity of victims, but the quality of data: full names, birth dates, social security numbers plus in some cases where you’ve lived for the last few decades.

“This breach is the worst breach I’ve ever seen and you should care because dealing with fraud is a pain. (TIGHTEN)  It’s a simple process to freeze your credit, if you freeze your credit you take away almost all risk of fraud,” Montgomery said.

Tool shows if you are part of the hack

To figure out if your information has been compromised Pentester has a free online tool just enter your first and last name, state of residency and birth year.

Their results redact all but two digits of your social, and Pentester said the search is not stored on their server.

“The data goes back to my childhood home,” Bianca West, in Greenville when we showed her the Pentester tool, said.

“Well that’s scary.  That’s definitely scary,” she said.

What to do if your info is compromised

Whether you see your name or not, cyber experts said it’s a good idea to freeze your credit if you don’t plan on taking out a loan anytime soon. Some evidence shows people who had frozen credit or use a service to scrub their data from the web were not part of this hack.

Freezing credit doesn’t take long, but you do have to contact the three major credit reporting agencies. To make it easy we have links to the exact page you’ll need at each agency to freeze your credit:

• Equifax
• Experian
• TransUnion

The process is free and if you eventually need a loan or new credit card, you can thaw your credit at any time.

Data breach turns into scam targets

With every major data breach, there is a swarm of fishing attempts trying to get you to reveal more private information. It’s often long after you’ve forgotten about the breach when the bad actors are most likely to strike.

“The people that harvest this info have plenty of time and they have the ability to wait you out,” Derek Davis, with the IT company Intellinet in Greenville, said.

Davis urges everyone to take these two extra precautions:

• Log in to your social security account to verify your information is accurate
• Make sure all financial and health accounts have multi-factor authentication

“If you don’t have it you’re just a sitting duck,” Davis said.

“That definitely does not make me feel very good,” Bacon said looking at his grandfather’s stolen information, a relative who shares the same name.

That unease, a powerful reminder that while our data has been leaked, it’s up to us to make it as hard as possible for our identity to be misused.

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