Identity Theft

Back in the days before the internet was invented, the type of theft that people were concerned about were those that came about through home invasion. Back then you could install locks and burglar alarms to help keep the criminals out. If you were the victim of that type of theft, you could call your insurance company and be reimbursed for the stolen items. Now there’s a new type of thief in town and they won’t be kept out by installing a deadbolt or alarm system.

These are identity thieves and their crimes are much more insidious and far reaching. Instead of robbing a few houses in your neighborhood, they use the Internet to victimize millions of people through the World Wide Web. Now that society is becoming more aware of this type of crime, they are demanding that steps be taken to put a stop to it. Because of new technology that advances constantly, chances are that this type of theft will never go away. For every new attempt that companies take to try to safeguard you, the thieves are able to keep up and figure out ways to get around it.

The best thing for you to do is to constantly take steps to protect yourself from online identity theft.

Email Accounts

With the convenience of the Internet comes the convenience of transacting business online. People pay bills, shop, and maintain their bank accounts online. In order to do this, they have to give each company that they do business with their email address. Set up an email account that is only used for these types of transactions. You can get free email addresses from sites such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Google.

Online Identities

Never use your personal identity when setting up emails. It would make it easy for thieves to identify you that way. Instead use something that no one would think of such as the last name of your first crush. You can also use something such as the make of your dream car like maserati@emailaddress.com. You can also use numbers such as the last four digits of the telephone number you had in the house you grew up in. Make up a code that no one but you could figure out. Use your favorite dinner, such as steak, potatoes and green beans. Turn that into stepotgrbns@emailaddress.com.

Passwords

You should change your password every ninety days at the very minimum. Use really strong passwords that would be hard for a thief to come up with. Use a sentence that’s easy for you to remember, like, “The wind is blowing very hard” and use the first two letters of the sentence. This would translate to, “thwiisblveha”. To make it even more difficult, add the house number of your grandmother’s home. Now your password is “thwiisblveha589”. That’s a strong password that may prevent people from getting access to your accounts.