FILE - This July 21, 2012, file photo shows Equifax Inc., offices in Atlanta. On Monday, Sept. 11, 2017, Equifax said it has made changes to address customer complaints since it disclosed a week earlier... (Associated Press) 
 
 NEW YORK (AP) — Equifax faces new lawsuits and is trying to make new gestures to customers in the wake of its disclosure last week that it exposed vital data like Social Security numbers of about 143 million Americans. 
 
 It's already come under fire from members of Congress, state attorneys general, and customers. 
 
 The company and its competitors, TransUnion and Experian, gauge how much of a risk people are for borrowing money. So they have some of the most sensitive information about Americans' financial lives — all of it a trove for identity theft. 
 
 Here's the latest on what you need to know about the breach: 
 
 LAWSUITS 
 
 Several law firms have already announced lawsuits against Equifax, and are all seeking to become class-action cases. If a class-action lawsuit is approved, it would be one of the largest class-action suits, by number of affected customers, in history. 
 
 Some state authorities have announced their own lawsuits against Equifax, including Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. 
 
 Healey said Tuesday the Equifax breach "may be the most brazen failure to protect consumer data" her office has seen. Healey will claim in the lawsuit that Equifax violated state laws by not maintaining safeguards needed to protect people's data. 
 
 WHAT IS EQUIFAX DOING? 
 
 Equifax, under pressure over how it's handled the breach, now says it is allowing customers to freeze their credit reports for free for the next 30 days. 
 
 That comes after consumers calling the number Equifax set up complained of jammed phone lines and uninformed representatives, and initial responses from the website gave inconsistent responses. Many got no response, just a notice that they could return later to register for identity protection. Equifax says it's fixed many of the issues people ran into. 
 
 The site is equifaxsecurity2017.com and the number is 866-447-7559. Equifax also says it'll send a notice to all who had personally identifiable information stolen. Equifax already had said it would offering free credit monitoring for a year, which people can sign up for at the website. And it says it won't automatically re-enroll people afterward to charge them. 
 
 WHAT SHOULD I DO? 
 
 Considering the size and scope of the breach, it's probably better to assume you were part of it. And ultimately, consumers will probably have to look out for themselves. They should: 
 
 — Closely monitor their own credit reports, which are available free once a year, and stagger them to see one every four months. 
 
 — Stay vigilant, possibly for a long time. Scammers who get ahold of the data could use it at any time — and with 143 million to choose from, they may be patient. 
 
 — Consider freezing your credit reports. That stops thieves from opening new credit cards or loans in your name, but it also prevents you from opening new accounts. So if you want to apply for something, you need to lift the freeze a few days beforehand. 
 
 WHO'S INVESTIGATING THIS? 
 
 State and federal authorities, as well as politicians. The chairmen of at least two U.S. House committees say they want to hold hearings. 
 
 Like the Wells Fargo sales scandal, the Equifax breach is causing bipartisan outrage and concern, but there has been no talk of any new laws to further regulate the industry. Credit bureaus like Equifax are lightly regulated compared to other parts of the financial system. 
 
 Several state attorneys general have also said they would investigate, which could result in fines at the state level. 
 
 And the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the nation's watchdog for financial issues, says it has the authority to investigate the data breach, and fine and sanction Equifax if warranted. 
 
 Company executives are also under scrutiny, after it was found that three Equifax executives sold shares worth a combined $1.8 million just a few days after the company discovered the breach. Equifax said the three executives "had no knowledge that an intrusion had occurred at the time." 
 
 Equifax's stock has fallen more than 25 percent since Thursday. The company was scheduled to meet with investors publicly this week at a financial conference in New York, but pulled out and instead executives are giving one-on-one meetings with investors, a spokeswoman said. 

 He says Democrats want to aid young immigrants by end of year 
 
 The massive data breach at Equifax Inc. is "exhibit A" on the need for strong U.S. regulation, including higher fines against companies that mishandle consumers’ personal information, second-ranking Senate Democrat Dick Durbin said Monday. 
 
 "We are duty-bound to step in on behalf of innocent citizens who are going to pay a price," Durbin said in an interview with Bloomberg News. 
 
 Equifax last week disclosed a computer breach that may have affected 143 million people -- or almost half the U.S. population -- revealing Social Security numbers, drivers’ license data and birth dates. The Atlanta-based company now faces multiple state and federal investigations, and a proposed multibillion-dollar class action lawsuit was filed against Equifax. 
 
 While Durbin said Republicans are loath to regulate, he called the hack "an indictment of our current level of regulation when it comes to this industry and others." 
 
 Asked if the Equifax hack indicated more related regulation is needed, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the matter “is something we have to look into extensively.” President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser Tom Bossert will lead the administration’s efforts to respond to the Equifax data hack, Sanders said. 
 
 FBI Probe 
 
 The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are looking into the data breach, which Equifax said it discovered on July 29, and at least three U.S. House committees said they would hold hearings. 
 
 Equifax’s data is used by lenders to assess whether consumers should be granted loans. The company can expect weeks, if not months, of scrutiny over whether it could have done more to protect the data, and why it waited so long to inform consumers of the breach. 
 
 The Federal Trade Commission’s ability to penalize companies that don’t take strong steps to protect consumers should be re-examined after Equifax’s breach, Durbin said. Current fines “could hardly have envisioned a breach that would reach nearly half the population of the country,” he said. 
 
 Senate Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch, a Utah Republican, and the panel’s top Democrat, Ron Wyden of Oregon, sent a letter to Equifax Chief Executive Officer Richard Smith asking the company to respond to numerous questions about the breach. Among them, the company was asked when the breach was reported to three top executives who sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in Equifax stock at the beginning of August. 
 
 ‘Pathetic’ Remedies 
 
 Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said in a separate letter to Smith that the company’s remedies for the breach were "pathetic" and that offering one year of free credit monitoring to consumers provided "scant protection" to those who were harmed. Equifax should offer free credit monitoring indefinitely and should drop its charges of up to $10 to consumers who want to freeze their credit, he said. 
 
 Democratic Senator Brian Schatz of Hawaii said he was reintroducing legislation that would make it easier for consumers to deal with identity theft and mistakes in their credit reports. 
 
 Durbin also said Congress has a "compelling opportunity" to pass legislation by the end of the year protecting immigrants brought to the U.S. as children from deportation, following Trump’s decision last week to end an Obama-era order allowing them to stay in the U.S. 
 
 The senator said Democrats would consider accepting a boost in federal funding for border security in exchange for restoring the young immigrants’ legal status. At the same time, he said they would refuse to back Trump’s proposed wall at the U.S.-Mexico border or any crackdown on so-called sanctuary cities that limit their cooperation with federal immigration officials. 
 
 ‘Non-Starter’ 
 
 "The wall is a non-starter,” Durbin said. “Deporting the parents of Dreamers is a non-starter. We think sanctuary cities is a non-starter. Beyond that, we’re prepared to sit down and hear proposals" on border security, he said. 
 
 Durbin has co-sponsored legislation with Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that would grant legal permanent resident status and a pathway to citizenship to about 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, known as dreamers. 
 
 Trump this month announced an end to the program in the next six months and called on Congress to take action by then to protect them. 
 
 Durbin didn’t rule out the possibility that Democrats may seek to tie their support for the next debt-limit increase to a Dream Act plan. 
 
 "We hope we don’t have to get to a face-down with the White House or Republicans over this issue," Durbin said. "But Senator Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have made it abundantly clear that this is a priority. We’re not going to leave town without it.” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York and his House counterpart, Pelosi of California, have both demanded protection for the young immigrants. 
 
 — With assistance by Steven T. Dennis, and Elizabeth Dexheimer 

 You howled in protest, and Equifax had no choice but to respond. 
 
 On Tuesday, the company said it would waive all fees until Nov. 21 for people who want to freeze their Equifax credit files. It will also refund any fees that anyone has paid since Thursday, though the company would not say whether this would be automatic. 
 
 Before the announcement on Tuesday, many of the people who tried to set up freezes after Equifax disclosed a breach of up to 143 million Social Security numbers, birth dates and other personal data discovered they had to pay Equifax for the privilege of protecting themselves from the breach. And they were not happy about it. 
 
 It’s a logical reaction: You did not ask Equifax to vacuum up data about you, and then resell it to marketers and loan sellers. And it is not your fault that the company could not keep that data safe. So why should you pay for a freeze, which keeps new creditors from seeing your credit file and thus can keep thieves from applying for credit in your name? 
 
 Somehow, that question did not occur to Equifax on Thursday, when it first announced the breach. It apparently thought a year of free credit monitoring would be enough to placate consumers. When I asked Equifax on Sunday why it was not making freezes free, Wyatt Jefferies, a spokesman, did not respond to that particular question.
– Equifax has decided not to anger 143 million Americans any further by charging them to protect themselves from its massive data breach. The credit-monitoring company, facing a flood of complaints about its handling of the breach, bowed to public pressure Tuesday and said it would drop fees until Nov. 21 for people seeking to freeze their credit reports, the New York Times reports. Experts have suggested that people affected by the breach consider freezing their credit files, which would prevent thieves from using stolen information to get loans and credit cards in their names, the AP reports. Consumers have also been advised to closely monitor their credit reports for a long time to come. A class-action lawsuit was filed against Equifax last week after the breach became public. Authorities in states including Massachusetts also plan to sue the company over what analysts say could be the worst leak of personal information ever. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey says the breach "may be the most brazen failure to protect consumer data" that her office has ever dealt with. Sen. Dick Durbin, the second highest-ranking Democrat in the Senate, tells Bloomberg that the breach is "exhibit A" in the case for stronger regulation and higher fines for companies that mishandle consumers' personal information. (Three Equifax execs sold stock days after the breach was discovered.)