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Comment by vaidhy | Hacker News Reader

Given these info loss from major companies, it is worthwhile to assume that your name, your phone number and last 4 digit SSN are pretty much available for any actor.

For my part, I have put in a credit freeze with all three credit bureaus. I am wondering what else I should be doing.

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Yes. And not just the last 4 but your entire SSN, and most or all of the data that Credit Bureaus maintain, such as date and place of birth, past places of residence, whether you own or rent, income, education, marital status, and on and on.

It's all been exposed, somewhere, by someone who didn't exercise due care for protecting it.

Until this data becomes a liability and not an asset that can be sold and expoited, it will continue.

It's all out there, tenfold. It's available to anyone who wants it enough.

I've had my identity stolen. The SSA office essentially does nothing to resolve it, they place the burden upon you as the victim to fix an unfixable problem. I didn't even bother. The whole thing is fucked.

actually I'm pretty sure that all our social security numbers leaked in full since the Experian/TransUnion hacks. I have kept my scores frozen ever since then. It's a minor annoyance but I don't know why this isn't required now

They've been leaked ever since they were shared with anyone other than yourself and the Social Security Administration. Any system using an SSN as a password is fundamentally broken - just the fact that a company can verify your SSN is proof that it's an authentication mechanism known to more than only yourself... (Ok, they could be hashing it, or at least the first five digits of it... but they're not.)

Doesn't Comcast collect browsing history too? This data breach could be a big one

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