Article Source: http://www.usatoday.com/
After scaring everyone two weeks ago with my predictions of the
dangers you will face in cyberspace in 2016, it only seems fair to
provide you with a guide to some of the steps you should take to protect
yourself from identity theft in the new year. Here are a few things
you can do to protect yourself from identity theft.
1.
Never give personal information to anyone who contacts you by phone,
text message or email unless you have confirmed that the request is
legitimate. Caller ID can be fooled to make it appear that a call is
legitimate and emails and texts can be sent from hijacked accounts or
addresses that may appear legitimate, but are slightly different from
the real email address or phone number.
2. Sign up for the Federal Do Not Call list at donotcall.gov
to avoid telemarketing calls. Here is the link to sign up for the Do
Not Call List. donotcall.gov It is important to remember, however, that
the Do Not Call List does not apply to charities so you still may
receive telephone calls from people collecting on behalf of legitimate
charities, however, you can never be sure when you receive a call
purporting to be from a charity whether it is legitimate or not so never
give personal information or credit card information over the phone to
someone who calls you soliciting for a charity. If you are feeling
charitably inclined, go to the real website of the charity where you can
safely make your donation.
Read: How to protect yourself against Cyber fraud, Cyber-attack and Virus Computer Data Breach Hacking on http://onlinevirusprotection.blogspot.com/2016/05/protect-yourself-against-cyber-fraud.html
3. Consider opting out of
pre-approved credit card offers. These can be stolen from your
mailbox by identity thieves who can then apply for credit in your name.
You can opt out of these offers by going to optoutprescreen.com.
4. Check your credit report at each of the three credit reporting agencies, Equifax, Experian and TransUnion
at least once a year. Often people first become aware of becoming a
victim of identity theft when they find fraudulent charges on their
credit report and the earlier you become aware of the problem, the
easier it is to fix. Because federal law provides the right for you to
get a free copy of your credit report from each of the three major
credit reporting agencies annually, you should stagger your requests to
each of the credit reporting agencies so that you get one report every
four months. Get your free credit reports at annualcreditreport.com.
5.
While the credit reporting agencies and others tout the use of
fraud alerts on your credit reports as a way to help protect you from
identity theft, the truth is that fraud alerts by which someone issuing
credit in your name is supposed to notify you before issuing credit in
your name are not terribly effective and there is no penalty for a
company issuing credit to someone in your name without notifying you
even if there is a fraud alert on your credit report. A far better
choice is to put a credit freeze on your credit report. This will prevent someone from accessing your credit report for purposes of obtaining credit even if they have your Social Security number. Here is a link to a previous column I wrote about credit freezes that explains how to get one.
6.
Limit your use of your debit card to use at ATMs. Don't use it
for retail purchases because the law provides much more protection from
liability when your credit card is illegally used than when your debit
card is fraudulently used. In addition, even if your debit card company
provides for zero liability, your bank will freeze the bank account you
have tied to your debit card while they investigate any fraudulent use
of your debit card, which can be tremendously inconvenient.
7.
Get an EMV chip credit card, if you don't already have one and if
the places you shop still haven't switched over to card processing
equipment for the new cards, tell them that they should do so soon.
Your shopping will be safer when everyone is using these new cards.
8.
Use a strong unique password for each of your accounts. This is
particularly important because if you use the same password for all of
your accounts, you are more susceptible to identity theft if your
password is stolen in a data breach at one of the companies with which
you do online business. Having a strong, easy to remember password is
not as difficult a task as it may seem. Start with a phrase, such as
IHate2 UsePasswords. This is a good combination of capital letters,
small letters and a number. Now make it even stronger by adding a
couple of symbols such as exclamation points at the end so it now reads
IHate2 Use Passwords!!!. This is now your basic password which you can
customize for each account by adding a few letters to identify the
particular account, such as Ama for your Amazon account so your Amazon
password would read IHate2Use Passwords!!!Ama.
9. Security questions
are an important part of your online safety. Armed with the answer to
your security questions, a hacker can change your passwords and take
over your online accounts. Unfortunately, the answers to common
security questions, such as your mother's maiden name can be found with
little effort by an identity thief. Sometimes, you may unwittingly
provide that information yourself on social media where you may provide
more information to the public than you realize. The key then is to
make your answer to your security question nonsensical. So instead of
the answer to your mother's maiden name being "Jones," change it to
something like "Grapefruit." No identity thief will guess it and it is silly enough for you to remember.
Read: How to protect yourself against Cyber fraud, Cyber-attack and Virus Computer Data Breach Hacking on http://onlinevirusprotection.blogspot.com/2016/05/protect-yourself-against-cyber-fraud.html
These
are a few of the things you should be doing to protect yourself from
identity theft and scams in 2016. In my next column I will give you
more tips.
Steve Weisman is a lawyer, a professor at Bentley University and one of the country's leading experts in scams and identity theft. He writes the blog scamicide.com, where he provides daily update information about the latest scams. His new book is Identity Theft Alert.
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