How to Prevent Yourself from Identity Theft? Secure Hacks

Overview: Identity theft means that someone uses your personal data like your name, bank details, birth date, to do inappropriate actions. The thief can commit crimes in your name and may run up debts. According to the federal trade commission, the reports have come out that they have received more than 1 million identity theft cases. So, in this blog we are going to learn how to prevent yourself from identity theft to secure your data and be more responsible towards this issue.

What Do You Mean By Identity Theft?

Identity theft happens when someone tries to steal your personal data like bank details, social security numbers from you to damage your reputation and do inappropriate actions. They can drain your bank accounts, open new credit lines, steal your tax refund, and can use your insurance for medical treatments.

How to Prevent Yourself from Identity Theft? 

Ideally there is not any safe way to prevent identity theft online, as monitoring services only alert you after the problem occurs. However, we are providing you 10 ways to make things harder for identity thieves.

1. Protect your Social Security Number:

   Your Social Security number is a key part to access your personal data. When someone asks for your number, firstly ask them why it is needed and how you can protect the data after giving security numbers. Do not always carry your card and try to keep it secure which contains your Social Security number.

2. Be Aware of Phishing and Spoofing Attacks:

   Nowadays, phone calls which are coming with the name of government agencies, businesses are made by scammers. With this, they may try to steal your personal data. Instead of responding directly, initiate a callback or return email using contact details from the official website. Also, be aware of the fact that attachments also contain malware which we usually download without knowing the repercussions.

3. Change your Password Frequently:

   Avoid maintaining the same password for long, change it. The reasons why passwords attract identity thieves are because they are used to unlock personal information. Keep them at least eight characters long with a combination of letters, numbers and symbols in them. Then, store the password in a secure environment and make it accessible.

4. Be Mysterious on Social Networks:

   When you share details on social networks such as home address, birth date, and so on. Try not to make it obvious for yourself, so that the thieves find it difficult reaching you.

5. Protect your Computers & Smartphones:

   If you are trying how to prevent yourself from identity theft while using your computer and other devices. You can do by setting up strong passwords and using a firewall, install virus detector software and update them regularly in order to prevent malware.

6. Click with Caution:

   Whenever you shop online, check out the websites before you enter your credit card details. Carefully, read the policy and agreements and try to avoid the section of sharing your information. Give only your personal information on secure web pages.

7. Check Your Statements:

   Open your credit card bills and bank statements as soon as you receive them. Check if any unauthorized charges have been made and immediately report them. Call your provider, if you are not getting the bills on time. As there is a chance, someone could have changed your contact information in order to hide the charges.

8. Stop Pre-approved Credit Offers:

   Stop accepting pre-approved credit card offers which can open the door for identity thieves to steal your mail. Then, the scammers could use your mail Id to expose all your sensitive data. Immediately deactivate or permanently delete your mail account.

9. Check your Credit Report Regularly:

   The three major credit bureaus, including Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion, grant costless credit reports on a weekly basis. Either you can get all the three reports at one go or you can be a free of charge credit monitor yourself. Just spread out your requests, ordering from a different bureau every four months. As credit bureaus cost from $44 to over $100 per year for monitoring services.

10.  Ask Questions:

    When any agencies or businesses try to reach you and ask for your personal information, don’t be afraid of asking questions. How it will be used, why you want my information and how you can protect your data. Explain to them that you are concerned with identity thefts before giving the details. By asking questions you can get the assurance of whether to give the data or not.

What to Do If I am a Victim of Identity Theft?

In case you are a likely casualty of identity theft, then take the following steps immediately to reduce the impact:

1. Lodge a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) at Identity theft.gov and report to your nearest local police department.
2. Immediately freeze your accounts if required by contacting bank and credit card companies and tell them about the theft.
3. Then, contact one of the major credit bureaus to place an alert about your theft case.
4. Now, keep a check on your financial accounts and statements and credit reports to detect fraud in the near future.

How to Prevent Yourself from Identity Theft? Manual Override

There are many cases of identity theft that are reporting on a daily basis. Usually people don’t have the idea where to provide your personal information. Now, it is a serious concern and people don’t know how to take precautions or delete all your data after becoming victims to these identity threats. So, we have come up with an ultimate solution which is SysTools Data Erasure Software which can permanently delete your sensitive data and leaves no scope of data recovery.

 

Also, it is used to wipe from HDD drive, completely delete an SSD drive, erase from NVMe and M.2 drive, etc. It complies with more than 20 + global standards which includes HIPAA Compliance, ISO 27001 and more.

Conclusion

Identity thefts can rise to financial problems. But, there are certain right approaches that you need to follow in order to know how to prevent yourself from identity theft and avoid data threats. Protect your personal information by regularly checking your credit report. So, follow the tips and stop becoming a victim of identity theft.