There is no certain way to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft. Even if you’re very careful with how you handle your personal information online, you still may be prone to data breaches and other attacks from hackers. Resolving identity theft issues requires time and money, proving the theft, figuring out what has been compromised, and then working to recover your identity. It takes lot of time to recover from a crime of which you have been a victim.
You can follow few steps to reduce the risk of identity theft, and even to make your information less valuable to a hacker or criminal who gets their hands on it.
Placing a Fraud Alert on your Credit Report – You can place a fraud alert on your credit report by contacting any of the credit bureaus for free. It lasts from 90 days to 7 years depending on the type of alert you add. Placing a fraud alert makes it difficult for thieves to open accounts in your name by warning the merchants and businesses to confirm the identity before moving forward with an application.
Freeze your Credit Report – A security freeze is like one step beyond a fraud alert because it requires to unlock your credit report with a PIN or password before someone can pull your credit
Monitor your credit reports regularly – To ensure nobody has opened new accounts under your name, do check your credit reports at least once in a year. You can get one free credit report from any one of the credit bureaus. If possible, pull one report every four months so that you can track your reports throughout the year.
Keep Safe your personal documents – Online identity theft is very common, as it gives criminals access to your confidential documents. You can follow below steps to safeguard your documents –
- Get electronic documents as much as possible to your secure email inbox rather than your postal mailbox.
- Keep your postal mails safe. Don’t allow them to stay unattended for long. If you are going out, then tell someone to pick the mails on your behalf.
- Use a shredder while disposing your financial and other sensitive documents.
Keep your Online Data Secure – Protecting online data can be little tricky these days as these hackers employ many tactics to steal your identity. Few things you need to keep in mind –
- Be cautious with links like phishing scams. These hackers send email to retrieve your personal details. These messages look like they are coming from a reputed and established business and once you click the link or attachment, they install some malware in your device that gathers all your information.
- Keep monitoring your online accounts regularly. Setting push notifications on your smartphone and email alerts can help you to track your accounts.
- Using public Wi Fi can put you at risk, as these hackers can set their own Wi Fi networks and use them to steal your personal data. Make sure the network you are connected to, is a trusted one or you can use a virtual private network to add an extra layer of security.
- Always ensure the websites that you are using is a secured one. If the URL starts with “HTTP” instead of “HTTPS” then it is not a secured one and your information is at risk.
Create Strong Passwords – An easy to remember password is always very tempting and you can use the same password across different accounts. For Example – Using a password like your pet name, name of your relatives, date of birth, mobile number, vehicle number etc. can put you at risk as these scammers are good at guessing passwords.
To keep yourself secured, always create a strong password for every account that you possess. Ideally try to keep all your passwords unique. Strong passwords are long with strings of letters, numbers and symbols. Few app or websites also provide two factor authentication which is also very valuable in terms of security.
Following these steps, can limit your exposure significantly from identity theft.