Steps you can take to protect your identity and assets

Identity theft ravages the financial world about like a force-five tornado. With just the four digits of your social security number, a sophisticated “digital impersonator” not only has power to take all your money but also to open credit accounts and secure mortgages totalling potentially a million dollars or more.

More credit cards increases vulnerability to identity threatNaturally, the more assets you have and the better your credit scores, the more damage a skilled identity thief can do. Therefore, although you do not want incipient paranoia to drive you into the company of identity-protection scammers, you do want to safeguard your accounts against intruders and thieves of all descriptions.

First, follow your common sense. Shred everyday documents that reveal your financial information, keep sensitive documents out of your trash, and digitize your most important financial information, protecting it with impenetrable passwords. Then, develop healthy habits that will keep your personal information safe wherever you go and whatever you do:

Empty your purse and wallet

Make cash the official currency of all your commerce. The more you use credit and debit cards, the more you make them vulnerable; you obviously increase the risk of losing them, but you also put them at-risk of password theft or “skimming”, the use of electronic devices to capture the numbers on their code strips.

On an ordinary day, you need only your driver’s license, your health insurance identification your roadside assistance card, and the one credit card you use for emergencies – the one with the best, most efficient theft and fraud protection. Carry enough cash to cover your transactions and provide for an emergency stop at a coffee shop! You’re safe and good to go.

Refuse to do business over the phone

Under no circumstances should you ever transact business over the phone, because you have absolutely no way of authenticating the person on the other end really is who he or she claims.

Automated transactions give you a few more protections than voice transactions, but they still come with risk that a determined identity thief may steal the numbers you send and therefore gain control of your accounts.

Especially refuse to share the last-four digits of your social security and charge account numbers with telephone service representatives. Exercise similar caution about internet transactions, double-checking to make sure your easy-access, user-friendly bill-paying and shopping sites have high-quality encryption and other hack protections.

Create and re-create strong passwords

If you watch crime dramas and mysteries, you know that every sleuth, whether good guy or bad guy, easily guesses the most common passwords – your birthday, your children’s and pets’ names and your address.

Sophisticated computer spies have compiled lists of the top twenty most frequently used password formulae, all of which are so painfully obvious even the “Home Alone” villains could guess them. Use your own criminal mind to develop passwords only you could know. Then, change those insidious, super-sneaky passwords about once each month.

Keep your distance

When you must use the ATM, or when you use your debit card at the gas station and in other public locations, make sure people are not peering over your shoulder, and shield the keypad with your free hand while you enter the magic digits.

Whatever precautions you take in semi-public situations, take them to an exponent of ten when you use a credit or debit card at a major retailer, because you are extremely exposed as you use the elevated keypad at the check-out stand.

Check every “mistake”

Good financial management requires you reconcile your account statements every month. Personal safety demands you check and reconcile your accounts at least every week. Use your banks’ and creditors’ websites to review deposits and purchases, making sure your own records match theirs. Whenever you see a discrepancy, call the customer service line immediately, engaging the representative until you feel satisfied they have corrected the error or you have taken proper steps to protect your account and assets.

“I used to take pride in being a trusting person,” says one identity theft victim, “No more! Now, I take pride in how safety-conscious I have become.” Stressing the emotional and practical consequences of identity theft, “You cannot imagine how vulnerable and violated you feel when an invisible thief steals everything you have worked to save. Then, you cannot imagine how much work it takes to reconstruct your genuine financial self.” Feeling a little bit safer and more secure because she has survived the ravages of identity theft, the victim says, “Now, a thief will find it easier to break into Fort Knox than into my accounts.”

Steps to Take Before Throwing Away Your Old PC

In 2010, the FTC recorded over 250,000 complaints of identity theft in the United States. While many identity thieves still get their information from your paper mail, a stolen purse or wallet, or hacked files online, more and more are starting to glean sensitive information from the hard drives of old computers. If you’re getting ready to toss out your desktop or laptop in favor of a newer model, take these steps to protect yourself from identity theft.

What information might be stored?

Not sure it’s worth all that work to wipe your hard drive? After all, you don’t keep a ton of important information on your computer, so what could a hacker possibly find anyway; and if you’re just donating your computer or selling it for cheap, what are the odds that an identity thief is going to get his hands on it?

The problem with this line of thinking is that often times, your computer has stored information that you don’t even know it has stored.

Common information stored on computers includes account numbers, credit card numbers, passwords, registration keys for software programs that you use, medical information, addresses, and even tax returns – which contain pretty much all the personal information necessary for a someone to apply for a credit card or bank loan in your name!

Keep in mind that many identity thieves will actually buy a used computer – or even steal a donated one – in the hope of gleaning such personal information. This information can be worth thousands of dollars to them and can create a huge headache – and financial problems – for you.

How to get rid of the data

So, before you sell your computer or donate it to your local school system, take these steps to get rid of the data for good:

1. Don’t count of just deleting the files. While you’ll want to delete the files from your computer, this is just the first step to take. Identity thieves are often experts at getting deleted information from hard drives by using specialized software.

2. Save any files you want to keep. Before you wipe your hard drive, you will, of course, want to save any files you want to keep. You can transfer your data to a new computer, burn it to a CD, put it on a USB drive, or put it on an external hard drive – a particularly good option if you need to store a ton of files or information.

3. Use a utility program specifically meant to wipe your hard drive. Local tech stores will sell utility programs meant for this purpose that match up with your specific operating system. The best idea is to get a program that will overwrite or wipe the hard drive several times instead of just once, and you’ll definitely want a program that wipes the entire drive.

If you know your computer has particularly sensitive information on it and you don’t trust a utility program to get rid of the information, you can always destroy the hard drive physically.

Businesses in particular, often use hard drive shredding services, as their computers tend to have lots of personal information on both employees and customers of the business.

A hard disk shredder

A hard drive being shredded

Once you shred the hard drive, you can simply sell or donate the rest of the computer without it, and the new owner can then completely replace the hard drive.

Watching for identity theft

Even if you are careful to destroy information on your computer before you sell or donate it, it’s a good idea to be wary of potential identity theft.

Check your credit reports regularly to ensure that everything is accurate. Credit reports are normally the first place you’ll see evidence of identity theft when new accounts pop up that you didn’t open. If you do think you’ve been a victim of identity theft, get identity theft assistance as soon as possible.

Report the problem to the credit reporting bureaus, who will place a fraud alert on your account. Then close the new, fraudulent accounts. Finally, report the fraud to the Federal Trade Commission and your local police department.

If you’ve taken steps to protect your personal information from being stolen, you may never have to deal with the problem of identity theft, but it’s always a good idea to be aware of what you should do if your identity should be stolen.