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Prevention of Identity Theft

One of the fastest growing thefts in the United States is the Identity theft. Around $745 million is lost every year due to identity thefts.

Gave you some statistical information about identity thefts. However, what exactly is identity theft? Gaining access to personal information like your name, rank, and social security number is called identity theft. Identity thieves employ different techniques to get access to these information’s. With the information thus stolen, they commit frauds.

You wanted to know whether you are one of the victims of identity thefts. How to verify whether you are a victim of an identity theft or not? You can find it in a very easy way. Do you have any unexplained charges or withdrawals in your bank statement or no plain as the nose on your face your credit application is denied or some debt collectors called you to let you know that you haven’t claimed any merchandises or services? If yes, you have become a victim of identity theft.

Things to be considered to prevent identity theft are explained in detail below. Read through them and guard against identity theft.

a) If anti-virus software installed in your system, update them regularly. If not, first install it in your system. If possible, you may set an option to automatically update the virus protection software. Install all the patches that are available for your operating system.

b) If files are sent to you by unknown persons, please do not open them. Similarly, do not click on hyperlinks or download programs from websites that are not trustworthy.

c) If you use internet almost the entire day or if using a high speed internet connection like cable or DSL, it is suggested that you use a firewall program.

d) When parting with your personal or financial information, make sure that the website is secured. How to find out whether a website is secured or not? Look for a lock icon in the status bar of the web browser. Similarly, check whether the website address begins with “https” where “s” stands for “secured.”

e) Avoid keeping of financial information on your system to the maximum possible extent.

f) Are you going to dispose off your system? Delete all of your personal information before disposing. To overwrite the hard drive, you may use a “wipe” utility or even reinstall the entire operating system.

g) You must be aware of a website called Card Cops (www.cardcops.com) who help customers to find whether their credit card numbers have been stolen or not. What they do is they monitor internet “chat rooms.” Do you know why? It is because through this medium only identity thieves normally exchange credit card send information. Card Cops is an anti-fraud education organization and therefore, they will send this information to the law enforcement authorities. You would really be surprised to find out how many such identity thieves were caught in the first two months of Card Cops operation. It was really more than 100,000 credit card numbers.

There is no way or methodology to take complete charge of such crimes. However, if you are cautious in what you do, it is definitely possible to minimize the risk involved.

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