Hi, this is Mike Walther with the Oak Wealth Advisors 2024 Cyber Security Recommendations. Unfortunately, it’s really the same recommendations we had last year, which is everyone should freeze their credit. You do that by going to the three main credit bureaus who are responsible for retaining and sharing your credit information with anyone trying to verify you for either a new loan, new mortgage, the purchase of a major item like a c or appliances, who needs to verify your credit history and your ability to pay. So, in doing so, you’ll need to reach out to Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. When you let them know, you want to freeze your credit, it makes it impossible for someone else to borrow money or take out a line of credit using your information. If you need to do a transaction, you simply need to reach back out to them, unfreeze your credit, complete the transaction, and then freeze it again.

The reason for doing this is that there have been so many cyber security breaches over the last few years that have you to assume that all the bad actors already have all of your personally identifiable information. Therefore, they could go out and do really bad things in your name and ruin your credit for the future. So, by freezing your credit, you can eliminate their ability to do that. To learn more about freezing your credit, you can go to the FTC’s consumer site and learn more about freezing your credit there. The actual link is on our screen, and you can simply search FTC consumer credit freeze to find it yourself.

In just the past few years, all the different companies on this screen have had major hacks. In fact, in 2024, the US registration of all of voter identification has been hacked into. So, between that and the other credit hacks in the past, the bad people have your information. Your job is really twofold, making sure they can’t utilize it for their own benefit and to your detriment. That’s by freezing your credit.

And then by making sure you never share your account information where your money already is in a way someone could intercept it. So never put your actual full account number in an email. If someone calls saying they’re from a bank or an investment firm asking you to verify your information, never give it to them. Call them back at the number you know is legitimate and then work through that team to confirm any information they might need. If for some reason you’re locked out of your accounts, go through the proper procedure to fix that. Don’t just click on a random link. That’s how you get in trouble. So, use those factors to enhance your security. And what we want to do is make sure that you don’t lose the assets you’ve accumulated by being careful with your account numbers. And then make sure no one can take out credit in your good name by locking down and freezing your credit with those three credit bureaus.

If you have more questions, reach directly out to those different credit agencies or contact your advisor at Oak Wealth Advisors. We’d be happy to help you secure your future. Thanks so much for listening.