In the U.S., you're taught from a young age to always protect your Social Security Number and be cognizant of your credit report. That's because hackers don't need much more information to impersonate you, and a surprise fraudulent account is no fun when applying for a new line of credit. To best protect yourself, or take action on a potential current risk, you can take the following steps to safeguard your Credit Report moving forward.

Credit Freeze: The best way to protect against someone opening an account in your name is by requesting a credit freeze. A credit freeze will prevent lenders from accessing your credit report unless you lift or remove it. This does not cost anything nor impact your credit score. You’ll need to contact each credit reporting agency (Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion) individually to place a freeze and to lift or remove a freeze.

When you set up a credit freeze, you'll be given a PIN or password to use when lifting the freeze. Credit bureaus must activate a credit freeze within 24 hours of receiving your request, and they must lift a freeze within one hour of your request (assuming you provide the required PIN or password).

Credit Lock: To take it a step further, you can request a Credit Lock. Similar to a credit freeze, a credit lock will block all access to your credit report; however, this action will take place instantly, meaning there is no delay if you'd like to activate or disable it. In other words, you won't need to "thaw" your credit before applying for a loan or credit account.

Though credit freezes are free, credit locks are typically offered as part of paid services from the three national credit bureaus. Nevertheless, when you activate Cyrus Credit Monitoring, you will have access to a free credit lock feature. This means you'll be able to instantly lock and unlock your credit report from within our app, without having to contact each credit reporting agency separately.

Fraud Alert: If you don't want to freeze or lock your credit at this time, you have the option of requesting a fraud alert on your report. This will require a business to verify your identity before it issues new credit in your name. You can place a free fraud alert on your credit report by contacting one of the three major credit bureaus directly. The bureau you contact is required to notify the other two major bureaus about the request. This initial alert will stay on your report for one year, but you can renew it after it expires.

In the case that you already have been a victim of identity theft or fraud, you can request an Extended Fraud Alert which lasts for seven years instead of one. When requesting an extended alert, you'll need to submit copies of the identity theft report(s) you filed with your local law enforcement and/or other agencies.

Review your Report: When you enable Credit Account Protection in the Cyrus app, we'll scan your credit report for issues and review it for fraud. If you see anything on your report that you don’t recognize, we can help you file a dispute for investigation and set up a recovery plan. Even if your report is clear of suspicious accounts or transactions, we'll notify you if anything new appears on your credit report in the future.

Thanks to the Fair Credit Reporting Act, you can also request a free copy of your credit report once a year** from each of the three major credit bureaus. Though you can request these reports at any point in time, we recommend staggering your requests every four months, so you always have the most updated information possible. You can obtain your reports from each credit agency website directly, or from AnnualCreditReport.com.

**As result of the COVID-19 Pandemic, you can get a free credit report every week from each of the three national credit bureaus, through April 20, 2022.