How to protect your information online

If you must create your own passwords, try creating long, complex passwords

There are more reasons than ever to understand how to protect your personal information, as major website breaches become ever more frequent. On Thursday, Equifax, one of the three main credit reporting agencies, said that identifying information for 143 million customers had potentially been compromised.

How do I know if my personal information has been taken?

Unfortunately, you may want to assume that it was. Cyberattacks happen all the time.

As for this most recent Equifax breach, the company is directing consumers to its website to see whether their information had been stolen, though as of Thursday night, Equifax declined to comment beyond