Capital One Breach: What You Can Do Now

A data breach to Capital One servers in March exposed the personal information of nearly 106 million of the bank's customers and applicants. The hack, which included US and Canadian customers of the banking and credit card company, followed the settlement reached between Equifax and the Federal Trade Commission concerning a hack in 2017 that affected 147 million customers.

According to Capital One, the breach on March 22 and 23, 2019, resulted in the hacker gaining access to personal information related to credit card applications from 2005 to early 2019 for consumers, applicants and small businesses. Capital One detected the breach on July 19. Among the personal data exposed were names, addresses, dates of birth, credit scores, transaction data, Social Security numbers and linked bank account numbers.

About 140,000 Social Security numbers and 80,000 linked bank account numbers were exposed, Capital One said. And for Canadian credit card customers and applicants, approximately 1 million Social Insurance Numbers. Capital One said, however, that no credit card account numbers or login credentials were revealed in the hack.

Capital One said it will contact by letter U.S. individuals whose Social Security numbers or linked bank account numbers were part of the hack. Affected individuals can probably expect to hear the week of August 5. At the moment, Capital One doesn't have a website that lets you check for yourself, unlike with the tool Equifax released to see if you were part of its data breach.

Be on guard for emails and phone calls from scammers posing as Capital One or government representatives asking for credit card or account information, your Social Security number or other personal information.

Monitor your credit reports. Look for unusual or unfamiliar activity, such as the appearance of new accounts you have not opened. In addition, sign up for a credit monitoring service.

If you suspect fraud, place a fraud alert with each of the credit reporting companies: Equifax, Experian and TransUnion. You will also need to contact fraud departments for each company, freeze your credit and DOCUMENT EVERYTHING. — cnet.com