How to protect credit card hack in 2017

Ways To Protect Against Credit Card Hacks

Pardon us for sounding all doom and gloom, but a series of incidents proves that your sensitive financial and personal data isn’t necessary safe. Look at some recent stats. A Home Depot data breach affected some 56 million credit and debit cards. The well-known Target breach affected more than 40 million consumers, and if you want to see the many other breaches – some even larger – in a depressing, graphic format, take a look at this chart. According to a 2012 Consumer Reports survey, 22.5 % of 5,000 consumers who received notice of a security breach became victims of identity fraud.

Read our Editors' guide on How to be safe and Protect your credit card from being hacked and stolen while Shopping Online HERE*

Why do cyber thieves take the time to wreck havoc in such large proportions? Because it pays. On the black market, your credit card information is worth an average of $32!

Data breaches are now part of life, and you need to know how to protect yourself. Since hackers are going after the companies that hold your information, it’s hard to stop them from getting your information. All the same, you can take steps to minimize the damage. Even if you haven't been hacked yet, many of these moves can make your information less easy to find and less usable if you are caught up in a breach.

Read our Editors' guide on How to be safe and Protect your credit card from being hacked and stolen while Shopping Online HERE*

1. Get a Replacement Card

If you've been told you're in a data breach, don’t ask…tell the company that you either get a new card or close the account. You’re not likely to get any pushback from the already embarrassed company. If you do, don’t back down.

2. Check Your Account Online

Don’t wait to check it when the statement arrives; check today. Keep checking daily for at least 30 days after your new card arrives. If you find a suspicious charge, dispute it immediately.

3. Freeze Your Credit

If you are caught up in a data breach, call each of the three main credit bureaus and request that your credit report be frozen. Freezing doesn’t allow anybody to access your credit report without your approval. Creditors probably won’t approve an application without having access to the person’s credit report.

If you're deeply worried about potential breaches, you can also freeze your accounts; you don't have to be a fraud victim. However, this step makes getting any kind of credit exceedingly cumbersome for you and and the potential lender, so you may want to think twice about taking it.

4. Order Your Credit Reports

You get one free credit report per year by law, but you’ll probably be eligible for more frequent free reports if you were a victim of fraud. Even if you haven't been targeted yet, be proactive and get your free reports. Ideally, order one every four months so you've covered the year.

5. Watch for Phishing Scams

Just because thieves have your credit card number doesn’t mean they also have the expiration date and the three- or four-digit CVV number. Beware of phishing, a scam where the thief might send an e-mail or call in an attempt to gain the rest of the information. Don’t give your information to anybody unless you call them. If somebody leaves a message, go to the company’s website and find a contact number to make sure it matches what the person in the message provided. For even more security, call the company directly and make sure the person who called you is legitimate.

6. Don’t Sign Up for High-Priced Fraud Protection

In the panic of the moment, you might be tempted to shell out up to $300 per year for credit monitoring services. Don’t do it. By closely reviewing the information you get free of charge, you can monitor your own accounts. If a company provides the information to you free of charge, make sure to cancel the service before the renewal date.

7. Be Smart About Passwords

You aren’t going to prevent a breach by employing all of the password rules, but you don’t know what kind of information thieves were about to steal. Employ strong passwords (those random letters and numbers) and change your password frequently. Remember, if it’s easy for you to remember, it's probably easy for a savvy cyber thief to crack.

The Bottom Line

If you haven't been a victim yet, act proactively to make yourself less vulnerable.

If you have, don’t panic. It’s going to take time to clear everything up, but you won’t pay for any charges that weren’t yours. Call your credit card company, tell it about any incorrect charges and be patient as it works to clear them from your account.

 

In the meantime, continue monitoring your credit report and credit card bills for more signs of unauthorized activity.

Read our Editors' guide on How to be safe and Protect your credit card from being hacked and stolen while Shopping Online HERE*

 

Read more: 7 Ways To Protect Against Credit Card Hacks | Investopedia http://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/102914/7-ways-protect-against-credit-card-hacks.asp#ixzz4OZbvW6eF

how to protect your data online and avoid identity theft in 2017

How to protect yourself online and avoid identity theft in 2017

With increased cyberspace threats 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.

Read our Editors' guide on How to be safe and Protect your credit card from being hacked and stolen while Shopping Online HERE*

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.

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.

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.

Read our Editors' guide on How to be safe and Protect your credit card from being hacked and stolen while Shopping Online HERE*

 

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.