Make Easy Money Online: Firewall

Thursday, 30 October 2008

How to Protect Yourself from Computer Identity Theft

Identity theft is considered as a huge problem in our society. Identity theft occurs once a thief assumes another person’s identity by using confidential information supposed to be known exclusively by that person. The thief will commit fraud using the person's name and important confidential information without the victim ever knowing about such transactions.

Individuals who are new in using the internet sometimes become to victim to computer identity theft systems. In most cases, the person involved in the identity theft systems uses your credit cards to buy supplies and merchandise for themselves.

While others will get an application for credit card, make bank account and destroy your good credit score. In addition, making some correction about such subjects includes more time, effort and is stressful, so here are ten useful ways that you can use to avoid yourself from being an identity theft prey.

• Make a disposable email address

Make sure that you have an email address that you can only use for businesses and other personal communication. If for instance, you want to buy something online, or you want to join a newsgroup, it is better than you use a disposable email address.

Yahoo and hotmail are some of the free accounts where you can make you own disposable email. Both of these are able to interface with other famous email clientele such as the outlook and the outlook express. You can use one of the two for your purchasing transactions.

• Cover up your internet identity

If your name is Anne Brown try to not to use it in making your email accounts especially when having business with people you are not familiar with and deceitful-looking.

Perhaps if your birth date is April 17, 1968, do not make an account that contains both your name and birth date.

• Use a unique password

You can use one password for your private data, and then use a different one for your dealing account and another one for your disposable email addresses you made. If possible, do not use passwords that appear in order like password3 for your private account, password4 for you business transactions and password4 for disposable email addresses.

• Use “tough” passwords

Avoid using birthdates, anniversaries, or your children’s birthdates when making passwords. Do not use passwords that are purely letters or numbers.

In addition, to not to use passwords consist true words. Make passwords made of phases like “I drink 1 glass of milk everyday”. Get the first letter of every word in the phrase and it will result to “id1gome”.

• Change your passwords

You must change you passwords at least every 6 months or if you want, you can have it changed every year. If you think your passwords have been exposed, change them for your protection.

• It is important that you only use one credit card for every online transaction that you make

If you have more than three credit cards, stick to the one that you know will best work for online transactions. This is to monitor the transactions made with each of your credit cards. Therefore, if your other credit cards have an online transactions you are certain that those are fake.

• Make use of a credit card rather than a debit card

Though many debit cards have online purchase safety steps, it is easier to fight fake charges than to refund debit card finances already used.

• When you make online transactions ensure that it is safe

If you are making your first transaction on the internet, make sure that the company you are dealing with is someone familiar or referred to you by a trusted one.

• Check for the company’s privacy guidelines

When doing the first purchasing online, ensure to check the privacy guidelines, search for logos from purchasers groups and try to find out if they are a member of the better business bureau. If possible, click the logos to confirm that they are genuine.

• Do not open or sign up email inviting you to update your email account or credit card information through email.

These are only fraudulent. Some people do them attempt and secure your personal data. Most of them increasingly improve their modus operandi and go to great lengths to appear genuine like the company websites using their own logos.

Following the above guidelines, you are surely keeping yourself away from this computer identity theft.

As an advice, if an individual feels that he is a victim of an identity theft, it is appropriate to contact the nearest Justice Department. If not, a bank office can also help in that particular situation. Remember, in every action, taking extra care and getting help from the appropriate agencies is the safest thing to do.

Copyright © Anne-Marie Ronsen

Publishers are free to use this article on an ezine or website, provided the article is reprinted in its entirety, including copyright and disclaimer, and ALL links remain intact and active.

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How to stop identity theft online

Online, identity theft is quite common already. It seems that everybody is getting their businesses and transactions done online. That is why, online identity thieves are always on the lookout for their next victims.

How do online savvy protect themselves from the online identity thieves that are rampant nowadays?

1. Passwords.

Know that those little pop ups that is asking you if you would like to remember your user name and password is not helping you any. Most of these passwords are stored in system file and every half brained hackers know about this.
If you are not making use of firewalls, it is pretty easy for just about anyone to get hold of your password and use that anytime in your expense.

Be wary of these things. A prevention measure is to have a lengthy password complete with different kinds of characters.

As much as possible, do not input all your information in your computer or when something asks for it. The internet is definitely not a safe place to store your data and information.

2. Phishing.

What is phishing?

Phishing is one of the strategies being used to fool people into giving out their passwords and other personal information by pretending that they come from a genuine source.

Examples are emails sent by someone staring that you have won on some online raffle. And that you need to give out some information for verification. Out of hope or ignorance, you probably will end up giving them what they want.
This is what phishing is all about. Phishing scammers are very much skilled in imitating other styles and language of communications. They use lists of millions of email addresses to send their notes out to, in the hope of getting even a small number of victim.

If you find it hard to distinguish which emails you are receiving are scams, try to verify the source of the message. Better yet, ask some sort of proof first to find out they are really legitimate or not.

3. Firewalls.

In the past, firewalls were a luxury. But now, they have become a necessity.

There are already an increasing number of Internet hackers that are making use of free programs that can compromise your system.

Take note that there are around 60,000 points of entry to your computer. So you may want to at least filter out some of the entries that can cause trouble.

4. A secure connection.

Before sending out any personal information, make sure that you make it a point to check out the browser address bar. Why is this?

Because you may want to be assured that you are sending them on a secure connection. A secure connection is an address that begins with http. If you do not see this in the address browser, then you can guarantee that that link is not secured. They can be breached easily. There goes your details.

5. Always confirm.

Before you click on that send button, think hard first. Are you willing to give out vital information away? Do you trust the receiver of this?

Today, every bit of information can be built into a solid profile. You can actually get a lot of information about someone just by knowing his or her birthday. This is the online world. Apparently, identity thieves also know about this.

Be prepared for the consequences that your actions will bring. You cannot blame anyone but yourself when you find yourself a victim of identity theft online.

6. Account checking.

If you are one of those banking online, be sure to go back and check in after a few days to review the transactions you have made. Not all of these online financial institutions have the ability to filter out fake transactions.

If ever you find something suspicious in your transaction, contact your bank immediately so they can take the necessary steps and stop further unknown negotiations to happen. In many of these cases, you will not be made liable for the expenses or charges that may incur. That is why, you have to report the soonest possible time.

Online identity theft is not likely to go away for sometime. So you need to be aware of them in order to prevent them from getting the most out of you.