How Does Identity Theft Occur

Protection against id theft has become an important factor where the statistics for identity theft is constantly increasing in the United States. There are some simple steps you can take to prevent someone from stealing you identity and using your personal and financial information for their benefit.

You should know that there are also increasing number of victims of online identity theft. You might have just purchased a single item online but soon found that your credit has been compromised with an unknown person. You might have clicked something or provided your information to a website that was secure to you, but you find that all your financial information, bills and cards have been hacked.

How identity theft occurs

There are several similar identity theft cases being reported. Unfortunately they have also become the most common issue at the internet scene specially when more people opt for purchasing stuffs online. The crime takes place when the cyberspace criminal uses the information of another person and pretends to do things in their name.

This is generally done with your social security number, bank statements, credit cards and other personal information. The most common method of availing this information is by just stealing your wallet or by searching through your trash box for any imprecisely thrown away bank statements or any important document.

Protect yourself from id theft

When you know how these thieves work to steal your information and by what means they can hack your sensitive date can help you stay away from being another victim to the growing theft number. There are some simple ways you can protect yourself against id theft. Firstly you should protect your social security number. It would be safe if you wish not to carry your social security number in your wallet as having access to this information can let criminals know about your credit history, charge accounts, bank account and utility accounts.

When someone else gets hold of this information they can even open new accounts of credit or just obtain a new drivers license in your name. Therefore you should prevent giving your social security number to those who feel dubious to you.

The other best way is to fight back phishing. This is the act of sending emails where criminals pretend to be from a legitimate company or enterprise in order to phish your private information which can be used for any cases in identity theft. These emails can actually lead you to some fake websites which ask for private information such as credit card information and passwords.

Make sure you ignore these emails and do not offer any information. Apart from this protect your personal computer from any virus or spyware attack. You should also use strong and difficult passwords for your email and all the other online accounts. You can use spyware protection, firewalls and virus protection software to keep your computer safe. In case you feel being phished or scammed and are suspicious about being a victim it is often recommended you instantly report to the officials like the social security fraud hotline.

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