Identity Theft - How to Avoid, Find, Recover and Report it?

Below are certain emails/activities that people fall for that deceives them and they end up in losing their identity. Let us check some of them so that you can avoid it.

• If you receive an email such as, I am ambassador of so and so, or my husband/wife/father died in an accident, or from a person who claims as an attorney mentioning that they need a bank account number to transfer one Gizzzzilion dollars, beware! - Do not reply. If you give away your routing/account number you will end up in a problem.
• None of the credit card unions or banks will ask you for your username and password. The site will look pretty much (because it is mocked) same as your bank web site, but it is not the same. Before clicking on the url in the mail, just highlight your mouse on top of it and you will see it points to a different URL (different website). This is called Phishing.
• When the original camera/camcorder is 1400 dollars and if someone offers that for 300 dollars, which is too good to be true - your conscious is right, it is definitely too good to be true, do not buy from websites that doesn’t have any history in online or customer reviews and that their site looks unprofessional with no contact information or phone numbers.
• When you go to Coffeeshop/Kinkos or any other place for internet surfing, make sure you delete all cache, that you sign out etc.,
• For password reminder, do not choose very common secret question - that someone who knows you could guess. Longback Lycos had secret reminder question such as what is your favourite pet?, what is favourite color etc., and they revealed the password without changing it, so people were able to access email and their privacy was at compromise.
• When you do credit card transaction make sure that the url starts with https (means secure layer) and that it is valid and verified.
• Do not store passwords of your online bank account or any other sensitive information in your email box.
• Do not pass bank account numbers or any such credential when chatting or through emails.
• Listen and Trust your instincts, remember - when something surprises you, shocks you, upsets you through email, you have to check whether they are because of email spams.
• There are lots of credit card thefts - and junk emails asking you to enter username and password for Western union, paypal, ebay account etc.,
• Have a nick name online, do not disclose your personal information in blogs that could compromise your privacy.

Next post, we will see the precautions that needs to be taken Offline to protect your identity.

Regards,

Shiva