8 Tips To Help You Beat Identity Theft
The rising tide of identity theft has been much in the news as of late as millions of identities have been stolen or compromised worldwide
. It seems hardly a week goes by without hearing of the latest security breach involving personal identity information. With online security lapses in some of the largest corporations and even government agencies, a person might wonder if there is anything that can be done to beat identity theft. The answer is a resounding "yes!" The following 8 tips provide some excellent ways to minimize the chance of becoming a victim of identity theft.
1) Use strong passwords
It's easy to rely on a couple of trusted passwords for all of our accounts, but it's also an invitation to online disaster. It is important that you use different passwords for each of your accounts. If you use one password for all of your accounts, the danger is that a cyber criminal can crack the password and then have access to all of your accounts. Conversely, having different passwords for each account makes it much harder for identity thieves to access your information. Even if one of the passwords is discovered, it will only compromise that one account, not all of them.
Make your passwords strong and difficult to guess by using a combination of letters, numbers, and characters. There are many free password generators online; use one to generate very strong passwords that will be difficult to crack. If you write down a copy of your password, be sure to keep it in a safe place like a locked file cabinet or safe. Another option is to use a password keeper like Roboform or Turbo Password which can store all of your passwords and other personal information, and be locked by a master password.
2) Do not use sequential passwords.
Sequential passwords like password1, password2, password3 etc. may easily allow others to access your accounts. Identity thieves know that many people are generally lazy when it comes to passwords, and use sequential passwords to keep things easy to remember. Once the cyber crooks figure out one password, it won't take them long to figure out the rest.
3) Change passwords regularly
Don't keep the same password for a great length of time. Change your passwords periodically, for instance, once a month. By regularly changing passwords it becomes much more difficult for someone to access your accounts.
4) Use credit cards for online purchases
There are a couple of good reasons to use credit cards rather than debit cards for online purchases. First, credit cards are more secure because of the security system that credit card companies use. Secondly, if there is a dispute on a fraudulent charge, it's much easier to dispute a charge that has not yet been paid than to recover funds already withdrawn and spent with a debit card.
5) Use only one card for online purchases
Try to use only one credit card for your online transactions, as this minimizes the chances of someone stealing your credit card information. Obviously using 5 cards increases the risk by 5 times over using just one card.
6) Check the website privacy policy
Whenever you do business with an online company, check its privacy policy. The privacy policy should explain in detail what information is collected and how it is used. If you disagree with their methods and use of information they gather from you, it's your prerogative to not do business with this site.
7) When submitting any data, make sure the website is secure.
You can know the site is secure (that is, the information is encrypted) by looking at the beginning part of the URL. Sites without security encryption will have only the http:// at the beginning. Secure sites will have an added "s" on the end of the http, thus showing as https://. You may also see a padlock icon in the browser window which indicates SSL (Secure Socket Layer) mode. This means that any data sent to the website is encrypted (scrambled and encoded).
8) Update the Security Software for your PC
It is vitally important to keep your operating system and internet browser up to date with the latest security patches and updates. These updates often patch security holes and vulnerabilities discovered in the software. Failure to keep your system updated leaves you open to attack from hackers and other criminals who wish to access your computer for personal gain or to harm it.
Be sure to keep your virus databases updated (you do have anti-virus installed don't you?), and install pop-up blockers that will block those annoying pop-up ads from websites that you do not want to see in your browser
by: Jesse Whitehead
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