How to protect yourself from fraudsters when personal data is leaked

Residents of the Ulyanovsk region are advised to check their phone numbers and credit history, if personal information could be in the hands of fraudsters. One of the main measures of protection, experts call the installation of a self-ban on the issuance of loans and new SIM cards. These actions will help reduce the risk of financial losses and detect attempts to use other people’s documents in time.

If passport data, phone number or other confidential information got to outsiders, the first thing to check is whether the attackers used them. As explained by the head of the Committee on information and legal security Alexander Kellermann, this can be done using the portal “State Services”.

The personal account displays phone numbers registered on the user's passport. If an unfamiliar person is found among them, this may indicate that someone issued a SIM card using someone else’s personal data.

This situation is particularly dangerous, as telephone numbers are often used to confirm financial transactions and access various online services. Therefore, a suspicious SIM card must be disabled, and then set a self-prohibition on the registration of new numbers.

The next step is to check your credit history. Through "Public Services" you can get free information about the credit bureaus, which store information about the financial obligations of a person.

In this case, the credit report is provided by each bureau for free twice a year. From the document, you can learn not only about existing loans, but also about requests from banks and microfinance organizations.

According to the expert, special attention should be paid to the appeals of creditors with whom a person has never interacted. Even if the loan was not approved in the end, the very fact of the request may indicate an attempt by fraudsters to get money from someone else’s documents.

To further protect themselves, Kellermann advises to establish a self-prohibition on the issuance of loans and loans. It can be issued through the portal "State Services" or in a multifunctional center.

Such a measure limits the possibility of concluding loan agreements that are subject to the prohibition. However, there are exceptions: it does not apply to mortgages, car loans secured by a vehicle and already existing credit cards.

In this regard, the specialist recommends to separately check the limits on open credit cards and, if necessary, reduce them. This will reduce potential damage if attackers gain access to the owner’s financial instruments.

There's another nuance. According to Kellermann, information about the absence of a self-prohibition can be used by a credit institution for 30 days. Therefore, once a personal data breach is detected, it is important to keep track of your credit history for at least the next month.

At the same time, the cancellation of the established restriction does not occur instantly, but only on the second calendar day. Such a delay is provided, among other things, to protect citizens from fraudulent schemes, when people are trying to convince them to urgently lift the ban and issue a loan.

An additional security measure will be notifications from banks. The expert advises to connect messages about all financial transactions, as well as logins to banking applications from new devices.

This will allow you to quickly notice suspicious activity and contact the credit institution if there is information about an unknown loan or attempt to access the account.

Experts emphasize that when personal data is leaked, it is important to act in advance, without waiting for debts to appear or money to be written off. Checking registered SIM cards, monitoring credit history and setting self-prohibitions help reduce the likelihood that someone else’s documents will be used for financial fraud.