As you have likely heard, the credit reporting agency, Equifax recently announced a data security incident that may have exposed some of your personal information, including your Social Security number and other identifying information.  As your financial institution, we want to make sure that you are aware of the Equifax security incident so that you can take steps to protect yourself.

According to the Federal Trade Commission blog, if you have a credit report, there’s a good chance that you’re one of the 143 million American consumers whose sensitive personal information was exposed in a data breach at Equifax, one of the nation’s three major credit reporting agencies.

Equifax has established a dedicated website, equifaxsecurity2017.com to help consumers. They have provided a tool on the site for consumers to determine if their information was potentially impacted by this incident.

We recommend frequently monitoring your account activity through Online/Mobile Banking and reporting any suspicious activity to us immediately. You can also visit the Federal Trade Commission’s website, ftc.gov/idtheft, to obtain information about steps you can take to better protect against identity theft as well as information about fraud alerts and security freezes. 

For information on how we at Hiway protect your personal information, please visit our Privacy & Security page. We also take added steps in identifying members who call us to access information, asking questions beyond basic personal information that may have been obtained due to the Equifax security incident. If you would like to add another layer of security, we recommend that you call us at 651.291.1515 or 800.899.5626 to add a personal password to your account.

If you have any questions regarding the incident, or issues with the Equifax Security site, please contact Equifax.