Top 10 Ways to Protect Yourself from Online Identity Theft

By: Jim Faller

Identity theft is becoming a bigger problem as more and more
people are making the internet a bigger part of their lives.
People who are new to the online medium often fall prey to
'phishing' or other internet identity theft schemes. In many
cases the 'phishing party' uses your credit card to order goods
for them selves, in other cases they will apply for credit
cards, set up bank accounts, and take advantage of your good
credit rating. Correcting these issues involves a lot of time
energy and stress, so here are ten tips to help you from
becoming a victim of identity theft.

Use a disposable email account. Keep your business or personal
email account just for business or personal communication. If
you are going to be making purchases online, joining newsgroups,
or subscribing to mailing lists and ezines use a disposable
email account. There are many online free accounts such as
yahoo, hotmail or grail, and most of them can interface with
popular email clients like outlook or outlook express. Use one
of them for all of your shopping transactions.

Disguise your online identity. If your real name in Mary Smith
try to avoid using email accounts with name like
msmith@example.com when dealing with people you don't know and
trust. If you were born in 1972 don't chose
msmith1972@example.com as your email account.

Use different level passwords. Use one password for your
personal information, use another for your business accounts and
a third for your disposable email accounts or mailing lists you
sign up for. Don't use sequential passwords like password1 for
personal use password2 for business, and password 3 for
disposable accounts.

Use strong passwords. Don't use your birthdates, year you were
married, or your children's birthdates. Avoid choosing passwords
that consist entirely of letters or numbers. Also try to avoid
using passwords that are actual words. The best passwords are
mnemonic phrases like "my father ate three apples for
breakfast". Take the first letter of each word and convert the
number into numbers and you end up with "mfa3a4b".

Rotate your passwords. You should change your passwords every 6
to 12 months. If you suspect your passwords have been
compromised change them as a safety precaution.

Use only one credit card for all of your online purchases. If
any of your other credit cards have online transactions you know
they are fraudulent. If you see offline purchases for your
online credit card you also know they are fraudulent. Use credit
cards instead of debit cards. While many debit cards now offer
online purchase protection it's easier to dispute fraudulent
charges than to recover debit card funds that have already been
spent.

When you make purchases online make sure your transactions are
secure. In the address bar you should see "https" and not
"http". There should also be small lock icon in your browser. If
this is your first purchase from the company make sure the
issuing company is someone you have heard of like Verisign, or
Thawte.

Check a company's privacy policy. When you make your first
transaction make sure your check the privacy policy, look for
logos from consumer groups like Trust-E and the better business
bureau. Click the logos to make sure they are authentic.

Never open or fill out email requests for you to update you
account or credit card settings via email. These are 'phishing'
scams people use to try and secure your personal information.
Many of them are growing increasingly sophisticated and go to
great lengths to look exactly like the companies website using
their exact logo.

© Computers.6ln.com, All Rights Reserved.

About the author:
This article was written by Jim Faller of
http://computers.6ln.com a website with information about
viruses, spyware, adware, backups, data recovery and computer
security.