Countrywide Financial, now owned by Bank of America, will provide free credit monitoring for up to 17 million people whose financial information was exposed because of a security breach, according to the settlement approved Monday.

Anyone who obtained a mortgage or who used Countrywide to service a mortgage before July 1, 2008, is eligible for the settlement.

People could be reimbursed up to $50,000 for each time their identity was stolen. They would have to prove they lost something of value, weren't already reimbursed and that the theft stemmed from the Countrywide breach.