Identity Theft Check

The use of PIN numbers, rather than a simple signature for credit and debit cards, has made identity theft slightly more difficult. It’s much harder for a criminal to guess your PIN number than forge your signature.

However, you do have to take steps to protect your PIN if you want to keep the criminals at bay.

Firstly, never write your PIN numbers down- at least not in a visible or decipherable way. And keeping your PIN numbers in the same place as your cards is a major no no- don’t even consider doing it!!!!

Also, when entering your PIN number, ensure that nobody else can see the numbers that you are entering- particularly if there is someone standing particularly close to you.

Keeping your PIN numbers safe means the chances of identity theft are lessened.

Identity theft is becoming more and more common, particularly over the internet, so you really do need to understand the implications of becoming a victim to it.

Identity theft isn’t just as trivial as somebody pretending to be you- it can have a serious effect on your life and your future.

If you fall victim to identity theft, you could be set up for a crime you didn’t commit and, at the lesser end of the scale your credit rating could seriously suffer.

Although pretty much anyone can be targeted by ‘identity thieves’, just by shredding important documents and keeping yourself safe online, you can really reduce the possibility of falling prey to these criminals.

The popularity of sites such as Facebook and Twitter are at an all time high, and millions of users log on every day to catch up with friends and let the world know what they are up to.

However, as with most popular things, there is always somebody who wants to come along and spoil all of your fun, and social networking sites are no different.

When you sign up to these sites, you’re often asked to fill in lengthy forms, full of your personal information. Whilst the owners of these sites do their utmost to protect you, you also need to protect yourself.

You should make sure that you never have your full birthday showing, and also never log in to any applications which ask you for personal information- as you never know who it is going to.

Be a little more aware of the information that you display on these sites and you don’t have to let your fun get spoilt!

Recently, after a short while, I logged back into my Myspace account, only to be told that I had been ‘phished’ and that I needed to change my password.

I’d never even heard of phishing before, so was a bit alarmed when I was told I’d been victim to it. Basically, phishing is when fraudsters get you to put your login details into a page that looks like the site, but it is actually a fake page which allows them to capture your login details and use them to do all sorts of fraudulent things.

Thankfully, I don’t have any financial information stored on Myspace, although my date of birth and address were on there, which left me wide open to identity theft. I’ll be keeping my beady eye on login pages from now on, that’s for sure…

Most of us have shopped online at some point in our lives, and it is becoming more and more popular by the day. However, with the popularity of online shopping at an all time high, the amount of opportunists who are ready and waiting to steal your credit card details and identity is also on the rise.

I know of at least one person who has had this happen to them, and a large chunk was spent on her credit card. This happened a few months ago now, and she still hasn’t received the money back, and the culprits haven’t been prosecuted.

So, when shopping online, make sure that the site has the ‘padlock’ icon, or similar in the corner, and ensure that you log in using the correct homepage- as phishing is also on the rise.

With Christmas fast approaching, many will now be in the middle of the hectic panic that is Christmas shopping. However whether you are shopping online or visiting your local high street, be sure to remain extra vigilant against the possibility of identity theft.

Below are just a couple of the steps you can take to avoid identity theft:

Shred and destroy unwanted documents
Unfortunately just throwing them in the bin is no longer enough, as the type of people who want to steal your identity will have no qualms in routing through your rubbish! Anything with personal details printed on them, even if you consider it just junk mail, should ideally be properly shredded before throwing away.

Immediately report lost or stolen cards
If you have lost your credit / debit cards or even had it stolen, be sure to ring your bank and have them cancelled immediately. Firstly, criminals will likely try to empty the account as quickly as possible so reporting it as lost/stolen will immediately clarify who has done the spending. Also reporting the card early will make it much harder for criminals to get away with cloning the card for the purpose of identity theft.

As the mobile phone market expands and the technology becomes more sophisticated, so will the potential of identity theft and other security issues.

As you may be aware, the iPhone is now a very popular phone throughout the world taking a large market share away from other brands.

This one along with others including Blackberrys and Googles own phone have the ability to surf the internet using modern browsers much like anyones laptop or PC.

This in turn opens up a number of security issues and flaws much like the battle Internet Explorer goes through with hackers and scammers trying to part with your money.

Unfortently, virus software and other techniques aren’t available for these phones and the reliance on the companys own software for safety become paramount.

The best advice to stay safe whilst online using these is to remember, much like the previous article that public wifi networks aren’t to be trusted and to keep your phones software upto date.

With Wireless networks being increasingly popular, it is important you are aware of potential security risks whilst using your computer at airports, coffee shops etc.

The security on wireless connections ranges from open, WEP, WPA and WPA2.

Open basically means public with no encryption / security to speak of. This means that any data sent from your computer can be read by anyone inbetween your laptop and the airports / coffee shops wireless box.

Intercepting this data is very simple to do making stealing usernames and passwords incredibly easy.

This is the main reason online banks require you to enter your password partially so that its a lot harder to use once stolen.

If you need to use a public network I advise not typing sensitive information and staying off banks / paypal accounts just incase.

To most regular internet users including gamers, bloggers, photographers staying safe online comes easily. For those of you that haven’t spent their life on the internet I can offer some words of advice to keep you from any mishaps.

1. Always keep Anti Virus software and Anti Spyware software updated - I tend to use brands of software that win well known virus competitions / awards.
2. Make sure the above software is set up correctly to actively monitor your computer in real time and to make sure it’s scanning all incoming emails.
3. COMMON SENSE - I’m pretty sure that link you read saying naked Avril Lavigne pictures is going to be dodgy / fake / malicious.

If you stick to the above 3 links then you should be pretty safe.

I’ve come accross a lot of dodgy emails and a lot of dodgy websites in my time, working in this industry. One can usually spot a dodgy email or website a mile off, but do you think you could spot a sophisticated website?

Looks real? Well it’s not, infact if you click on any of those news links, it is going to try and download a few tricks to comprimise your computer.

Things to look out for

The websites url - This fake website will not have the correct URL / Domain name. It will have a URL as close as possible to the real thing in the hope that you won’t study it long enough to browse away from the website.

Spelling Mistakes - Sometimes even sophisticated hackers typo their work.

Too good to be true - Or even too bad to be real.

In summary, common sense prevails and anything else should be caught by any decent virus scanner.