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Famous con man turned security expert talks Equifax breach

Posted at 6:28 PM, Sep 14, 2017
and last updated 2018-11-21 17:46:25-05

One of the world's experts on scams talked to 13 Action News Thursday about the Equifax data breach.

RELATED: Nevada Attorney General investigating Equifax breach

Up to 143 million people's personal information may have been compromised.

Frank Abagnale, the man depicted by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie "Catch Me If You Can," says the credit reporting agency is to blame for the breach.

Abagnale was a con man in his younger years who has worked with the FBI for the last 40 years as a security consultant. He says technology has made today's world unrecognizable from the one he scammed back in the 1960s.

"There are the same crimes they were doing 50 years ago, they just had a different means of delivering the information," Abagnale said."Phishing and email scams and robocalls and things of that nature didn't exist back then, but it's the same scam."

He says the best way to protect yourself is to mix up your passwords, update your software and don't give away so much information on social media.

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