Data breaches have become the norm. From Yahoo! (3 billion accounts compromised) to Target (110 million accounts compromised), it now seems more newsworthy when a month goes by without a major hack.

Yet last year’s revelation that Equifax was the victim of a data breach was different. Target is one thing. But a major credit reporting bureau is part of our financial nervous system.

It was like shooting a proton torpedo down a thermal exhaust pipe of a Death Star. And we all know how that turned out.

As reported by the WSJ, however, there may be a silver lining for consumers–a free credit freeze. We’ll come back to that in a moment.

Read full news article on Forbes.com