This is indeed pretty bad, but it's important not to panic, and to understand where the real danger lies.

The massive size of this breach actually helps you, if you're one of the victims.

It makes it fairly unlikely that your information will be used to establish phony credit accounts. It's simply a numbers game. If 140 million people's info got stolen, the chance of your info being used is small. They're not going to go out tomorrow and apply for 140 million new credit cards.

Could the data be sold to actual identity thieves? Yes. But again, given the massive amount of victims, you are again unlikely to find yourself impacted.

So where is the real danger?

If this stuff gets dumped on the web somewhere, this could be really, really bad.

Why? Because this leaves you vulnerable to anyone who wants to personally target you.

Let's take our friend SrslySirius here. Let's say he makes a video making fun of me, and I find myself highly insulted and wanting revenge. I can use the data breach to look up all of his info, and either sign up for various credit cards and loans in his name, or simply hand the info over to shady people who do this stuff and will be happy to have a new victim.

Or I could simply use his SSN to call up and turn off his electricity.

Or I could use his SSN to call up his cell provider, impersonate him, reset his online password, and get a full list of everyone he has ever called or texted.

The possibilities are endless.

Given that SSNs and driver's licenses are also used for identity verification on the phone, the possibilities for fucking with someone are endless, and all the info will be right there at everyone's fingertips.

A data dump is honestly what I fear here.

I guess we will have to see what happens.

Regarding credit monitoring, I'm probably going to pass on that offer, at least for now. In a perfect world, when you attempt to establish credit, the bank will call you and make sure it's really you. Unfortunately, that's often not how it works. In many cases, you are flat-out denied on the first attempt to apply, and then you are told if you wan to re-apply, you need to go through a ton of pain-in-the-ass hoops in order to prove you're you.

No thanks.