You’ve got mail! And you’ve gotten your identity stolen. It can be as quick and simple as that. Although identity theft has become easier to recognize and consequences have become less severe, there are still a significant number of Americans becoming victims of identity theft every year. Rather than deal with the consequences, it is much easier to prevent it from happening in the first place.
Identity theft used to mean stealing your physical credit card or social security card, but today it has been made a lot easier with the use of computers and the Internet. Even those of us with heavy amounts of protection are at risk.
Do not save information
The most common way identity theft is affecting people today is through email hacking. You may have your credit card information on any number of platforms, and for your own convenience you may have saved that information in order to avoid retyping it in. To prevent identity theft, you must not save this information.
Difficult passwords
There are several ways to make your password more difficult to break into. A safe password will include numbers and letters, lower-case and capitalized. Resist the urge to save your passwords on every website as well.
Protection
Keep the items that would be difficult to replace and easy to steal in safe locations. Do not carry your passport or social security card with you and be sure to have back-up credit cards in case yours is stolen. Also be sure that your bank provides security if the occasion does arise.
If you are planning on doing any shopping online, be sure that the website is secure and trusted. If it is not a brand name that you recognize, try checking it in a search engine first, especially if you got the link in an email. Not all spam gets filtered into the spam folder.