There are several methods for protecting your credit report from security breaches, data breaches, identity theft, identity fraud, credit card fraud, or any other credit related issues.

Credit report monitoring generally means notifying you of key changes in your credit report such as new inquiries, address changes, new account openings, or the addition of derogatory information to your credit report.  Credit monitoring helps protect your credit report because you can quickly review monitoring alerts to make sure the changes are a result of your actions not the actions of a possible identity thief.

Example monitoring alerts:

• Inquiries – shows who ordered a copy of your credit report.  If the inquiry is not authorized by you, you can then contact the inquiring party and resolve what the inquiry was about. 
• Address changes – shows new addresses for you as reported to the credit bureaus.  These often alert you when someone may be applying for credit under your name and SSN or may be trying to steal your identity and having credit information sent to an unauthorized address.
• New account openings – new accounts that are not opened or authorized by you may mean your identity has been compromised.  However, if you are alerted to this early on, maybe the damage to your credit standing is still manageable.
• New derogatory information – alerts of new derogatory information gives you the opportunity to review the information for accuracy, then if necessary dispute inaccurate information before it causes harm to your credit report.

Consumers ahs the ability to put fraud alerts and fraud statements on their credit report to alert users of their credit report to contact them before extending credit.  These alerts are often helpful in stopping an identity thief from opening new credit accounts.

Generally fraud ‘alerts’ alert credit report users there may be fraud going on with the consumer credit file, for example in cases where a consumer lost their personal information in a lost wallet.  Perhaps there has been no id theft yet but the could be because the lost wallet had personal identifying information in it sufficient to commit id theft.

Fraud ‘statements’ are perhaps stronger as they may state that id theft has actually taken place.  Fraud ‘statements’ usually stay on your credit report longer than ‘alerts’.

Credit report freezes prevent anyone from accessing your credit report to extend credit.  They may be the ultimate protection of your credit file, but they may also encumber your ability to apply for credit if potential cannot have timely access to your credit report.  There may be a fee to freeze and un-freeze your credit report at each credit bureau.

Credit freezes may be necessary to protect your credit report, but you are advised to carefully consider negatives as well as the positives of employing such sevices.