Equifax messed up. We have to clean up

After Equifax revealed earlier this month that hackers accessed the Social Security numbers, birth dates and other intimate information of 143 million people, leaving them at a serious lifelong risk of identity theft, both the company and consumer rights advocates were quick to tell Americans they needed to get to work.

First, visit the company's often crashing web page to check if your information was compromised. Then decide whether to sign up for the one year of free credit monitoring, weighing competing claims about whether you would be