Information of around 145 million American people got stolen in the Equifax computer breach. It just makes sense to assume that someone with credit history must have also been affected. 

Professionals, in this regard, need to take much serious precautions. This is because recently, CPA firms of different sizes have been targeted with cyber attacks. The hackers in this case, often try to steal the social security numbers of clients. 

In this article, we give an introduction t o the Equifax breach and then talk about the cybersecurity problems that CPAs often face. 

The Equifax breach is said to be the result of a computer systems failure. The exact underlying causes may be too technical for a layman to understand. However, it has been publicized that the Equifax breach resulted from a failure of installing a well-publicized patch for security to an “Apache Struts”. Earlier, an Equifax breach in 2017 was a result of using insecure passwords that were not compliant with the best password practices and not with the policies of Equifax itself. 

The Equifax breach is no less than a warning for the CPA firms out there and businesses, to review their cybersecurity status over the information of their customers and clients. This will work as a prevention against any future breaches, since these firms are a hot target for hackers nowadays. 

What should individuals do? 

Well, if you talk with an CPA Sarasota FL about the issue, they would not probably know the exact answers. Even the best Accountant Sarasota Fl will say that the exact actions that one should take remain quite uncertain. Instead, only a few temporary steps are considered to be helpful (as discussed below).

The prime reason for this is that most of the advice that we see on the internet, comes from the resources that are present in the Equifax website. At the time of this writing, all of these resources are considered to be quite unreliable by most of the experts. 

Moreover, it is quite unclear that who breached the website as of yet. Experts have been advising to eschew some temporary steps and to freeze the credit in the major four credit reporting agencies. These include Experian, Inova, Transunion, and Equifax. Due to a credit freeze, new account fraud can be prevented. This is primarily because a credit freeze puts a hold on the account as a result of which credit scores or other information cannot be released to auto dealers, vendors, and credit card companies. 

Experts also recommend to follow this process through phone rather than through the Equifax website. This is because the Equifax website has already faced a cyberattack. Hence, it is not very safe to freeze your credit scores through the website. 

Yet another approach that individuals can take is an identity theft insurance. This insurance is purchased separately. Often, it is a part of the renter’s or homeowner’s insurance. While such insurance does not cover the losses that occur from identity theft, it can cover some high costs that go into credit repair. 

Accountant Fajardo And Associates can help