Five Important Lessons from Recent Data Breaches

Carefully consider whether to offer free credit monitoring to consumers

When a breach involves payment card information and no Social Security numbers, companies like Target often make the mistake of offering free credit monitoring. They’re trying to reassure consumers, but instead may give them a false sense of security. Credit monitoring looks at changes to a credit file that have been reported to Experian, Equifax or TransUnion. Credit monitoring does not monitor existing credit accounts. So, if a Target customer enrolls in the credit monitoring solution provided by Target, that customer would not be alerted if an existing account — in this case, credit cards and payment cards — was used fraudulently. The only way for Target customers to find out if an existing credit or payment card is misused is by monitoring their payment card accounts for suspicious activity.