How To Protect Yourself From Online Identity Theft

Even though it's becoming much harder to steal an identity online, it's critical that you do everything you can to protect yourself from online identity theft. It only has to happen once to totally turn your whole life upside down.

With the new Internet security measures, it's becoming harder to steal an identity. But just one instance of identity theft can wreak havoc on your life as well as your finances. The more you understand how a criminal steals an identity, the better chance you have to protect yourself from online identity theft.

If a crook can get a name, age, sex, mailing address, Social Security number, and driver license number, they can take over an identity to buy products, charge on credit cards and even draw money from bank accounts.

There are a few ways you can reduce your risk and protect yourself from online identity theft by following these identity theft protection tips:

Keep all of your passwords as private as possible. No bank or financial institution will ever email you asking you to log into your account to verify your password with links in the email. This is an online scam that you should be conscious of so you won't become fair game.

Also, you should never store your passwords, Social Security number or account PIN numbers in your computer. If your computer gets a spyware virus the hacker has everything he needs to take over your identity and take all of your money.

Another way to protect yourself from online identity theft is don't use the same password on all of your online accounts. Can you imagine how fast a criminal can wipe you out financially with a password that works on every single account?

Identity theft protection is a very necessary part of any transaction on the Internet. Before you make any purchase online, make certain that the web site you are giving your credit card data to has a secure server.

This is one of the easiest ways to shield yourself from online identity theft. Secure pages begin with https instead of http, and a picture of a small gold lock is displayed in the lower right part of your screen.

To verify the name of the server that appears on the digital certificate, double-click the lock icon, and then check the name that appears next to "Issued to". If the name appearing next to "Issued to" is different from the name of the web site that you are giving your credit card number to, close your browser and leave the site.

In one moment, what took you years to establish financially, could all be wiped out turning your life completely upside down. Common sense and identity theft protection awareness goes a long way in determining if you will become a victim or escape this horrible crime. However basic these tips seem, they do work and offer you a chance to protect yourself from online identity theft.

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