State officials advise Utahns to consider credit freeze

UTAH CAPITOL – The Emergency Operations Center under the Capitol is where state officials figure out their response to disasters like floods and earthquakes.  Today, it was used as the backdrop to discuss what Utahns should do in the wake of the Equifax data breach.

While credit monitoring wouldn’t be a good idea, some state officials say it might not go far enough in the wake of the Equifax breach.  “A credit freeze will actually prevent you from becoming a victim of a future cybercrime,” according to Jeff Plank with the Department of Public Safety.

However, the Equifax problem isn’t the only thing Plank says people should worry about.  He also suggests people ought to change their email and social media passwords frequently.  Plus, he says if anyone has been affected, they should call the police and log on to ic3.gov.  “If everyone would report their crimes to the Internet Crimes Complaint Center, we’d be able to identify, a little bit better, who the suspects are and who the victims are,” he says.

Public Safety Commissioner Keith Squires says they didn’t want to have to rely on federal agencies, like the Secret Service, to investigate cybercrimes.  Squires says, “There’s been a lot of work done in that regard with agencies coming along together, including the National Guard,” adding, “We leaned forward and teamed with the FBI and found ways that we could start, at least, investigating cybercrimes and going after perpetrators in ways that hadn’t happened before.”