How many of you bank, shop, or transact other business online? There are at
least 4 million Department pf Defense employees that access their pay records
online only. Even offline, stored financial data can be placed at risk in
computers that are used on the Internet as well. As one of the fastest growing
crimes in America, identity theft is a concern for everyone.
A criminal gaining access to your bank or credit card accounts or personal
information can wreak havoc with your credit and leave you holding the bag.
Protecting your personal data at home and online is not too painful and
lowering your risk for a reasonable effort level is well worth it.

Before we tackle the computer and online environment, let's take a quick look
at your other home risks. Your garbage can and mail box are prime targets for
identity thieves. Bills, old checks, financial statements, credit offers, the
list goes on. All of these documents need to be shredded with a crosscut
shredder before discarding and mail should never be left in the mail box for
long. Arrange for someone to pickup mail if you are going to gone from your
home for more than a day. In short, anything with your full name combined with
any other sensitive information should be shredded before discarding.
Phishing and social engineering are methods to get you to divulge your data to
a criminal by making you believe the criminal represents an organization or
interest with access or rights to your information. Any phone call you receive
from someone requesting your personal information or credit card numbers
should be suspect. Request a way to call them back via the organization's
published numbers and verify the number is associated with the organization
before proceeding. Suspect good deals that come to you out of the blue via the
telephone or any other method. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably
is.

Now for your computer, there are a few things you should do here. Your online
activities pose the greatest risk. You need a hardware, or good software
firewall. You need good Anti-Virus and Anti-Spyware software. The software
versions will need regular updates to keep ahead of the hackers out there.
You also need to take some precautions with your own personal online and
offline habits. Online, you should use different, complex passwords for each
identity related account you access. You should set your browser security
settings as high as possible for general surfing and avoid clicking
advertising links from unknown vendors, or links in emails that come from
unknown senders or are out of character for the known sender. Never follow
links sent via email purporting to be from your creditors or financial
institutions asking you to validate your account information. Call them
instead, if you believe it is valid. Most financial or credit organizations
will never send you an email unless you have asked to receive account updates.
The last thing you need to be aware of online is who you are doing business
with. Be careful about providing your credit card numbers online. While
ensuring the site is secure is absolutely the bare minimum, ensuring the
vendor is honest and keeps your data secure is necessary too.

Offline, you should secure any financial, health, insurance, or other
documents containing your personal information by using encryption and
password protection. Most financial software packages have this feature built
in. Use it as well as Windows encrypted folders to make your private data
secure from undetected Spyware, or short term physical access to your computer
by a criminal. Don't use Windows auto-logon features and always use complex
passwords that are at least eight characters long, contain numbers, letters,
and both upper and lower case. Never use a common word, name, or other easily
guessed password. Something like T8$f~lly can be easy to remember, though very
hard to guess and extremely time consuming to hack. Finally, change all of
your passwords frequently and use a secure password manager to keep them
organized.

The last thing you need to do is monitor your accounts and credit. Keep on eye
on your financial account activities and your credit record. If you notice
something amiss, call the financial organization or credit reporting agency
and report it, change your passwords and pat yourself on the back for catching
it early.

My own Yahoo account was recently compromised. While this wasn't a costly
identity theft situation, it did put my name on some rather unsavory low-level
spam operations. A password change was all that was needed to shut down the
activity. Follow the directions I've provided and you will lower your risk of
identity theft and fraud related debts to almost zero. Keep in mind that if
you have Bill Gate's level of assets, you are in a different class of high
risk targets and should hire a security team to manage those risks and lower
your insurance rates. You can also call me and I'd be happy to help you put
that together. ;-)