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Top tenWays To Protect Yourself From Online Identity Theft |
by:
Jim Faller |
Identity theft is becoming a bigger problem as more also more people are making the internet a bigger part of their lives. People who are new to the online medium often fall prey to ‘phishing’ or other internet identity theft schemes. In many cases the ‘phishing party’ uses your credit card to order goods for them selves, in other cases they will apply for credit cards, set up bank accounts, also take advantage of your good credit rating. Correcting these issues involves a lot of time energy also stress, so here are ten tips to help you from becoming a victim of identity theft.
Use a disposable email account. Keep your business or personal email account just for business or personal communication. If you are going to be making purchases online, joining newsgroups, or subscribing to mailing lists also ezines use a disposable email account. There are many online free accounts such as yahoo, hotmail or grail, also most of them can interface with popular email clients like outlook or outlook express. Use one of them for all of your shopping transactions.
Disguise your online identity. If your real name in Mary Smith try to avoid using email accounts with name like msmith@example.com when dealing with people you don’t know also trust. If you were born in 1972 don’t chose msmith1972@example.com as your email account.
Use different level passwords. Use one password for your personal information, use another for your business accounts also a third for your disposable email accounts or mailing lists you sign up for. Don’t use sequential passwords like password1 for personal use password2 for business, also password three for disposable accounts.
Use strong passwords. Don’t use your birthdates, year you were married, or your children’s birthdates. Avoid choosing passwords that consist entirely of letters or numbers. Also try to avoid using passwords that are actual words. The best passwords are mnemonic phrases like “my father ate three apples for breakfast”. Take the first letter of each word also convert the number into numbers also you end up with “mfa3a4b”.
Rotate your passwords. You should change your passwords every six to 12 months. If you suspect your passwords have been compromised change them as a safety precaution.
Use only one credit card for all of your online purchases. If any of your other credit cards have online transactions you know they are fraudulent. If you see offline purchases for your online credit card you or else know they are fraudulent.
Use credit cards instead of debit cards. While many debit cards now offer online purchase protection it’s easier to dispute fraudulent charges than to recover debit card funds that have already been spent.
When you make purchases online make sure your transactions are secure. In the address bar you should see “https” also not “http”. There should or else be small lock icon in your browser. If this is your first purchase from the company make sure the issuing company is someone you have heard of like Verisign, or Thawte.
Check a company’s privacy policy. When you make your first transaction make sure your check the privacy policy, look for logos from consumer groups like Trust-E also the better business bureau. Click the logos to make sure they are authentic.
Never open or fill out email requests for you to update you account or credit card settings via email. These are ‘phishing’ scams people use to try also secure your personal information. Many of them are growing increasingly sophisticated also go to great lengths to look exactly like the companies website using their exact logo.
© Computers.6ln.com, All Rights Reserved.
About the author:
This article was written by Jim Faller of http://computers.6ln.coma website with information about viruses, spyware, adware, backups, data recovery also computer security.
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