Nine Threats To Your Identity

Here are nine of the most popular ways for thieves to steal your identity. Some of these are personally preventable and others are out of our control:

1. Stolen Company Data. Your personal information is stored on computers at stores where you shop, at your insurance company, your accountant, and more. It almost seems like a common occurrence where a company is hacked into and their customer’s information is stolen. This happens so often now that the crimes are rarely reported and don’t make the front page anymore.

2. Social Engineering. Identity Thieves are very clever. They will invent any way possible to fool you into giving your identity out. It’s called social engineering because the thief uses common social situations to get the information they want. Like a seemingly innocent phone call supposedly from your credit card company asking for your personal information.

3. Dumpster Diving. Identity thieves get a lot of their victims’ information out of garbage cans and recycle bins from old credit card statements and other personal documents thrown out carelessly.

4. Mail Theft. Your mail can contain valuable information: bills, banking information, credit cards, investments and more. Personal mail can often be stolen right from a mailbox.

5. Financial Account Hijacking. Once a thief has your personal information they can take over your personal accounts. You might not know about their activity for months.

6. Credit Card Magnetic Strip Theft. These clever crooks have tools to steal information off the magnetic strips on your credit card.

7. Discarded Computers. Your old computer really can tell stories. Even though you erased your hard drive crooks have tools to reclaim your personal information and use it against you.

8. Spyware and Viruses on Computers. You may not be familiar with the term ‘malware.’ It’s a term that covers all of the hacker tools that can cause harm on your computer. These tools include spyware, keylogger tools, Trojan horses and more.

9. E-mail and Internet Scams. Cyber thieves are getting more and more creative using scams like Phishing, Pharming and fancy come-ons to entice you to give them your personal information.

There Are Four Ways You Can Approach Protecting Your Identity...

 One way is to do nothing and hope that identity thieves don’t harm you.

 Second, you can be reactive. Reactive simply means that you are responding to all the material that comes your way. You are checking your credit card and bank statements to make sure nothing peculiar is on them. And if you do find something strange you contact your bank or credit card company immediately. Reactive also means that you are checking your credit report when you apply for credit or a loan.

 Third, you can be proactive. A proactive approach is a more aggressive way of protecting yourself against the bad guys. You are constantly looking ahead and evaluating before giving out valuable information.

 And fourth, combine reactive and proactive approaches. This is the best way to ensure you identity protection.

Nine Critical Steps To Proactively Protecting Your Identity...

 Here are your ‘Nine Proactive Steps To Identity Protection:

1. Begin to operate on an “I have to know everything” approach when you give out your personal information. Only give out your personal information to people you know and trust.

2. Protect your Social Security Number, credit card and other financial information. Do not give this information out over the phone unless you initiated the call or as we stated above are talking to a trusted individual from a trusted company.

3. Cancel all of your unused accounts including banking, credit card, licenses and permits.

4. At least once a year, if not more often, update and check your credit report and Social Security Earnings and Benefits Statement to make sure everything appears as it should.

5. Protect your mail. Make sure you have a secure locked mailbox to receive all of your mail. Always mail your payments and checks from a secure Post Office Box or from the Post Office. And, if you have a Post Office Box at the Post Office never discard your mail in a garbage can. Always bring your entire mail home.

6. Always crosscut shred all bank statements, credit card applications or information and important documents before discarding to recycle or the garbage. It is best to stir up the shredded documents to make it even harder for identity thieves to steal your information.

7. Purchase identity theft insurance. This will cover any losses incurred while recovering your lost identity once a crook has stolen it.

8. Invest in professional grade protection for your computer. The best protection available today comes from Managed Internet Security Service providers. The best security services include best-of-breed corporate grade security software for your computer, as well as unlimited service and support from trained security pros.

  Make sure it is the same kind of service that is used by major corporations around the world. Frankly, the over-the-counter and free security software programs available don’t keep up with today’s professional cyber thief. If those popular programs worked, why do we see the cyber-crime problem growing at a progressively faster pace?

9. Beware of e-mail scams like Phishing and Pharming. Phishing is an e-mail that looks like it came from a bank or business claiming you need to take care of a problem or your account will be closed down. It takes you to a page to fill out your personal information. Meanwhile, Pharming is redirecting your computer from a legitimate to a fake web site. For example, you may think that you are going to your banking site, but instead are redirected to a site that looks like your banks web site, but is hosted by an identity thief.

 Identity theft continues to grow at a torrid pace. Millions of people in the United States will lose their identity to thieves in the coming year. Many of them will suffer for years trying to clean up the mess that was left behind.

The bad news is we can’t control all of the identity threats we face each day. The good news is there are reactive and proactive steps we can take to protect ourselves against personal tragedy.