Identity theft and passwords
Identity fraud has experienced a huge increase in the last decade across many countries of the world. Identity fraud occurs when an individual obtains or steals your personal information and then pretends to be you, usually for the purpose of racking up credit card bills.
The most common method of identity theft is for an individual to obtain somebody’s details over the internet. With the increased use of the internet over the past decade, millions of people enter their credit card details and personal information on to websites every day. The scope for committing identity theft has therefore risen dramatically and people must be careful when buying products online.
There are several things that individuals can do to try to protect themselves from identify theft and they include:
Internet security
Nowadays, there are numerous different types of internet security available. By purchasing and installing the necessary security you will dramatically reduce the risk of identity theft as it will be more difficult for somebody to place a virus or some kind of monitoring device on your computer. If you get a virus, a third party may be able to monitor what you do on your computer, including your personal details and passwords.
Passwords
It is important that you do not use the same password for numerous different websites whilst using the internet. Often, in order to register and then subsequently log on to particular websites all that is required is a user name and a password. Usually the actual user name is merely an email address and so the only way of distinguishing between websites is the password. By using the same password you will effectively be providing the web operator with all your details needed to log on to other websites and maybe even use your credit card.
This is more of a problem where third parties have access to the information on certain websites. By using what is known as third-party ‘cookies’ certain individuals may be able to view your activity on a website. If they can then use this information on other websites (because you use the same password) they may well be able to carry out identity theft.
A common phenomenon these days is for people to use different passwords on different websites using different numbers or formulas that enable them to remember all their different passwords but not use the same one. One example of this is what is known as a memory hook – this involves remembering a certain phrase and using the first letter of each word for a password and then the second for future passwords and so on.
Another method that people have begun to use is to have an entire sentence as a password.
Do not respond to certain emails
If you receive an email from an individual or company claiming to be your bank you should not respond or follow any link attached to the email. Your bank is unlikely to be contacting you by email and therefore it is likely to be an attempt at fraud with the idea that you will then provide the ‘bank’ with your personal details which they will then use for identity fraud.
- Source:
- FindLaw
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