Think You’ve Got Your Credit Freezes Covered? Think Again.
Summary: Identity thieves are increasingly opening mobile phone accounts in the names of people who have already frozen their credit files with Equifax, Experian, TransUnion and Innovis, because phone carriers check credit with the National Consumer Telecommunications and Utilities Exchange (NCTUE) instead. The NCTUE, a consumer reporting agency founded by AT&T in 1997, is managed by Equifax as sole contractor, and its online freeze page served an expired Symantec certificate and failed to complete freeze requests in Krebs's attempts across three browsers.
Key Takeaway: A freeze at the big-three bureaus does not stop a phone carrier from pulling an NCTUE report, and the entity holding that data is run by Equifax, which disclosed last September that hackers took Social Security numbers, addresses and dates of birth on nearly 150 million Americans.
Read the original at Krebs on Security ↗
- Topics
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