What consumers do to protect their data a year after Equifax breach

“There’s no question that the silver lining in the Equifax data breach is that it woke up a lot of people to the fact they need to take action,” said Matt Schulz, chief industry analyst at CompareCards.

While the cyberattack at Equifax wasn’t the first major breach at a U.S. company, it was different in that the revealed data included far more identifying information — and consumers did not willingly share any of it with the company. Like other credit reporting firms, Equifax collects and compiles consumers’ personal data from various sources to create credit reports and calculate credit scores.

Equifax did not respond to an inquiry from CNBC.

A year ago, the public outcry over the breach led to days of congressional hearings, government investigations and class-action lawsuits. Equifax’s CEO and other top executives resigned after the breach as the company bungled its way handling the crisis: It accidentally sent consumers to a phishing site, consumers had problems signing up for its free credit-monitoring service, and it initially included a mandatory arbitration clause (meaning no class-actions) for anyone registering for that service.