Credit cards have chips and PINs. Your identity does not.

By now, you’ve probably received replacement credit cards with EMV chips, slid a card into the new slots at the register, or heard about chip & PIN technology. These embedded chips make it harder for criminals to counterfeit cards or to use a stolen card.

Chip & PIN, problem solved, end of story, right?

EMV chips do make credit cards, themselves, more secure. But that doesn’t mean you should stop reviewing your credit card statements for suspicious activity. And your credit card company will probably still attempt to flag strange transactions to review with you. But as stealing credit cards becomes a less-attractive crime, thieves may be turning to more-difficult, more-dangerous forms of fraud.

Account takeover, new-account fraud

If it’s harder for thieves to steal credit card information, they may turn to a potentially far more dangerous source: personal information. By piecing together enough of your data, criminals could fraudulently apply for new credit card accounts or take over existing accounts. This kind of fraud is potentially more dangerous than credit card theft because you wouldn’t necessarily find out about it just by looking at your credit card statements. These types of fraudsters depend on remaining undetected for as long as possible so they can profit as much as possible from their crime.

Credit monitoring as a critical layer of security

While your credit card statements won’t necessarily list new accounts opened in your name, your credit report likely will. That’s why keeping an eye on your credit reports may help you uncover signs of fraudulent activity you may not have otherwise seen.

Credit monitoring can be easy

Monitoring your credit may sound time-consuming, but it doesn’t have to be. At TransUnion, we make it easy to monitor your credit — you get:

• An alert anytime there’s a critical change to your credit report at any of the 3 bureaus
  
• 1-touch Credit Lock to keep criminals out of your TransUnion credit report
  
• Instant Alerts, sent anytime we get a request for your credit report

Start getting in the know now — signing up for TransUnion Credit Monitoring is easy!