Equifax credit reference agency was hacked on 29th July 2017, but only released this information last week. USA today (Large USA newspaper) ran the story on 15th September.

In the UK, 400,000 people have been affected, in the US 143 million people had their personal data stolen.

Equifax stated, THEY WILL NOT BE EMAILING OR CALLING the affected people. They will write by post to all affected people. DO NOT TRUST ANY EMAILS or COLD CALLS.

The stolen data in the UK is reported as Name, DOB, email and phone number. These details could be used for PHISHING emails; a common ploy, "so you know this is not a Phishing email, we have included the month of your birth and last 3-digits of your phone number".

Even saying on social media "I have just returned from Ibiza", could result in phishing emails being sent stating "this is your travel agent *****, there is a problem with your recent trip to Ibiza"; as you have just been, you may think this is genuine.

Standard protocol - unless you know the person, never click on any links within an email or call the phone number provided. Always do you own web search or even better type directly into the address bar; you should find the phone number from another source e.g. booking information, previous genuine emails or web search.

Anything that you log into, e.g. Banking, Equifax account, absolutely anything, always either use your web browser favourites/bookmarks or type directly into the address bar. For important financial log-ins, you should never do a Google search, because it only takes clicking on the wrong link once for  your log-in details to be compromised.

Safe surfing every one.