GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A number of high-profile breaches of private information are raising concerns around the country: Equifax, Yahoo and the breach of Spectrum Health patient information that Target 8 revealed Thursday.
So what do you do if your information gets out? Target 8 asked an FBI agent.
“The biggest thing is you want to monitor your financial statements,” said Ken Lavictoire, the supervisory senior resident agent at the FBI’s office in Grand Rapids.
That means bank accounts, credit card statements and your mail.
“They want to get money,” Lavictoire said of identity thieves. “Either access your funds directly and transfer them to someone else or open accounts and buy goods and send them to a third party. Fortunately for us in today’s world, the credit card companies and the banks are very adept at their own security systems.”
That allows banks and credit card companies to shut down fraudulent activity quickly, but not always. Your best protection, Lavictoire says, is you.
“You know your finances better than anyone else,” he said. “I know my finances better than anyone else. In today’s automatized world, my bills are paid automatically, my paycheck comes in automatically. Sometimes I forget to actually look at my bank account, but you need to do that.”