Like me, there’s a good chance you were affected by the recent Equifax hack of 143 million names.

The truth is, after the U.S. government was hacked awhile back (including all of my personal information from my top-secret security clearance) I stopped worrying about getting hacked.

After all, if you have a bank account, you shop at Target or Wal-Mart or you pretty much do anything in the real world (unless you live in a cave with no contact with anyone) you’re going to get hacked.

That’s the world we live in where there are over 4,000 cyber-attacks a day on companies and it’s growing leaps and bounds every month.

The bottom line is, the sure things in life are now death, taxes, and getting hacked.

But, like I said, I’m not worried about it.

There’s nothing I can personally do at Equifax to keep out the bad guys and there’s nothing I can do at Target headquarters or any other company.

So, I simply take the necessary measures to protect myself that way the next company that gets hacked with my personal information (Cabela’s, don’t let me down) it really doesn’t matter and I can still sleep at night.

This is because I’ve already taken the steps below to make sure I’m protected and hackers can’t really do that much damage if they know my social security number or birth date or other information.

I encourage you to do this too, if you haven’t yet, so here are the actions I personally take:

1. Put a freeze on your credit report. This is a no-brainer and should be the first thing you do once you finish reading this article. This way hackers can’t take out a mortgage in your name or buy a car or a boat, etc. You can learn more about freezing your credit by clicking here.
2. My home address is on nothing and I don’t even own my home in my own name (think trust and LLC.) In fact, recently, a buddy of mine who works for the FBI tried to track down my home address with his resources and admitted he couldn’t find me. In other words, you don’t want hackers or crazy people to have your home address.
3. Check your credit report at least every 6 months to ensure the information is correct.
4. Carry an RFID blocker card in your wallet so criminals can’t hack your credit cards.
5. Every single month, you must review your bank statements and your credit card statements. It’s a boring 15 minutes, but well worth the time.
6. Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) on your computer at all times.

If you just do the six items above, you’ll be well ahead of most people and you won’t have to freak out the next time criminals steal 143 million names since you’ll already be protected.