Credit Report Websites Being Targeted By Hackers, According To Report

If you rely on credit report websites to keep yourself up-to-date on your credit score and keep an eye out for suspicious activity, you may want to consider another option. According to a report by MSNBC, hackers are using credit report sites, even those operated by the credit bureaus, to steal your information.

According to the report, not only do hackers break into credit report sites to steal your personal information, they also sell them off on private webpages. The report goes on to say that prices for a victim’s information varies based on their credit support, but the prices are still shockingly low.

For example, a victim with a credit score of around 750 might have their information sold for as little as $80, while $90 will get you a victim’s information whose credit scores are 800 and higher. To make matters worse, this is more common than you might think.

This may sound like something that is isolated, but MSNBC’s report suggests that it’s far from an uncommon occurrence. The report uncovered several sites that sell off user information taken from credit report sites, and there was an alarming number of stolen information available for purchase.

It’s also not limited to one or two sites, either–the report suggests that hackers are targeting a wide variety of credit report sites, such as creditreport.com and annualcreditreport.com–which is operated by credit bureau Experian.

MSNBC reached out to Experian for comment on the matter, and this is what a spokesperson had to say: “Experian is aware of schemes such as this to access reports illegally, and we have taken measures within our systems to mitigate the issue,” Experian said. “We are constantly evolving our systems to prevent fraud and criminal activity, but do not comment publicly on the specifics of our fraud prevention methods.”

You can learn more about the risks of using credit report websites by checking out MSNBC’s report at this link.