recently the US had one of the largest cyber attacks in history targeted at one of the main 3 credit reporting bureaus. 143 Million Americans and some Canadians and Brits had the full list of identifying info stolen from the bureau. full names, addresses, national ID numbers, etc. everything one needs to impersonate you. this happened in July but was not publicly released until the late thursday night/ early friday morning. the executives of the company involved sold stocks before announcing this. there was no end user opt-in involved with the system that was breached. you should take measures to protect yourself such as frequently checking your credit report, etc.