My Personal Information Was Compromised in an Online Data Breach. Here Are the Steps I Took to Protect Myself Once I Found Out

It was the sort of letter no one wants to receive. Not so long ago, I opened the mail to find a note from my former mortgage loan servicer explaining that its database had been hacked. As a result, all of its customers' personal financial information -- including mine -- had gotten into criminals' hands.

Trust me when I say I'm not at all thrilled that a criminal now potentially has my address, Social Security number, and other such identifying information. Because of this, I need to be very vigilant about identity theft. So once I learned that my personal information was compromised, I made these important moves in short order.

1. I checked my credit reports

Checking your credit report for free is something you're able to do on a weekly basis. Once I found that my data was compromised, I did a thorough review of my credit report from each of the major credit bureaus: Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

One thing I specifically looked at was open credit accounts. I wanted to make sure there weren't any personal loans or lines of credit I didn't recognize, as that would potentially indicate that a criminal had opened one.

2. I put a freeze on my credit

Freezing your credit is pretty easy. You simply create an account on each of the aforementioned bureaus' websites, navigate to the right screen, and click a button. The process takes just a few minutes, and your freeze isn't set in stone. When the time comes to apply for a new loan or credit card, you simply go back into your accounts and unfreeze your credit temporarily.

But this way, with a freeze in place, a criminal basically should not be able to open a new loan or line of credit in my name. This won't necessarily stop them from getting into an existing account of mine, though, which is why I did the next thing I did.

3. I reviewed my credit card balances carefully

Reviewing my credit card accounts is something I do regularly -- usually on a weekly basis. But once I learned that my data had been compromised, I went through every account I have and checked each purchase line by line.

This is also something I plan to keep doing. Sometimes, criminals will wait a while to act after accessing your personal data. So I'm not taking much comfort in the fact that bogus charges didn't appear on my accounts initially. I know I need to stay vigilant.

4. I signed up for free credit monitoring

My former mortgage loan servicer is giving me access to a year of free credit monitoring via TransUnion's TrueIdentity program. But that protection didn't kick in automatically -- I had to follow some directions and sign up for it myself.

It's common for companies to offer this type of protection when a data breach to their systems puts you at risk. But you can also pay for credit monitoring yourself should you feel the need.

Given the prevalence of cyberattacks these days, no one is safe from a scenario like the one I recently experienced. So if you come to learn that your personal information has been compromised, definitely take the steps I did to protect yourself.

Even if you don't learn of a data breach affecting you, it's still a good idea to regularly monitor your credit report and review your credit card balances. It's one of the easiest ways to spot criminal activity so that you can take action accordingly.