Credit Freeze

You are worried about your identity being stolen in the wake of a massive cybersecurity attack by hackers in a nation you’d never heard of until today. To prevent cyber thieves from using your credit information to open accounts or steal your identity, you might notify credit agencies and tell them to freeze your credit. This is a common decision by people whose identities have been stolen in the past.

A credit freeze is a process that stops anyone from accessing your credit report, and thus from issuing you loans or other lines of credit. The inability of a lender to access a credit report would effectively lead to them rejecting a credit application.

Consumers can end a credit freeze by notifying agencies of the decision and paying a small sum.