Customers of Latitude Financial are the latest to fear their private details are now on the dark web.
The company says 7.9 million Australian and New Zealand driver licence numbers have been stolen - with NZTA saying close to 15,000 of them are in Aotearoa.
Those affected are now at a higher risk of scammers contacting them or misusing their data to contact other businesses, especially buy now pay later services, store credit cards and other consumer finance companies that will provide money quickly after an online application with what looks like legitimate ID.
If that’s you, your best defence is probably to contact a credit reporting agency and ask it to freeze or suppress your credit file.
Centrix managing director Keith McLaughlin said it costs nothing and should prevent anyone from applying for credit in your name using those details until you ask the agency to unlock your file.
If you ask one agency to suppress your file, it should also offer to inform the other two major agencies on your behalf so that they also lock your file there.
Locking and unlocking will probably take a bit of faff - supplying some answer to security questions and the like - and you'd hope the agency will be able to tell it’s you and not a scammer misusing your leaked details.
Those customers who suspect their details have been stolen need to be super-vigilant about anyone contacting them claiming to offer help.
Don’t just click a link or respond to a text or answer an email without a pause to think, does this seem legit?
Scammers may create convincing messages and include a contact that steers you away from the legitimate company, so one handy defensive manoeuvre is to search for the company details elsewhere and use those to reply, rather than whatever is in the message you’ve just received.
Be wary about any urgency in the message – scammers may try to force an error by making it seem like haste is crucial. Take a breath, take a minute, and talk to a trusted friend before you hit send.
You can also check if anyone has tried to misuse your details by requesting your credit history from credit agencies. Fair Go looked at this last year after helping sort out an identity theft case.
Some agencies will charge for a rapid reply, but if you can wait longer all say they’ll send you a delayed response for free.
One offers very quick access to a dashboard with your credit score from 1 to 1000 and a breakdown of who you owe money to and who’s applied in your name.
It’s free, but this is the internet, so be ready to receive a lot of offers afterwards from them to sign up to credit cards and other deals.
The Department of Internal Affairs has a long list of what to do if you think you’ve been scammed and Latitude is also working with Australasian consumer charity IDCare to get the word out.
IDCare's David Lacey said it's had more than 2000 contacts from across Australia and New Zealand seeking guidance.
"These situations tend to evolve. We do encourage people to keep checking in on the website of the breached organisation," said Lacey, who added that IDCare will continue to update its independent advice as it learns more about the Latitude Financial data breach.
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