MisTek - Technological Misbehaviour

Identity theft is becoming a huge concern for internet users with incidents of online scamers swindling unsuspecting net-surfers making the press on an almost daily basis. As such, protecting your ID has become a huge issue and a huge industry, but there are several ways that internet users can protect themselves that are quite easy and don’t require any technological know-how.

1) Keep a seperate Credit Card for online purchases. If you are an online shopper, then the fact is that you are at risk of people stealing your ID for nefarious purposes like credit card fraud. If you are using your usual credit card for online shopping, then you are at risk of losing the entire amount that you have access to on that card. It is a much better idea to have an entirely seperate card with a small credit limit that you use for online shopping. That way if the details get stolen, then the damage is limited to that smaller amount.

2) Don’t Give out Your Info to People Who Ask - If somebody contacts you on the internet via email or on the phone, then NEVER give them any personal information. Identity thieves often pose as legitimate companies like ebay and PayPal in the hopes of getting you to reveal sensitive information about yourself. Only give information if you have initiated the contact and are very confident of who you are dealing with.

3) Always manually type in the URL of your online banking and financial transaction services into your internet browser. Clicking on links to get to the address of your bank is asking for trouble (especially in emails) as scammers can use links to direct you to a scam website.

4) Keep your anti virus and firewall software up to date - Some  computer programs can track your online activities which is obviously not good if you are concerned about your online privacy. Usually such malicious programs are spread through email and can be caught and destroyed by most commercially available virus protection software.

5) Never give out personal or financial details via email - this one might seem pretty obvious, but plenty of people still get caught out. Email is not a secure way to transmit personal information.

6) Make sure a site is secure before transmitting personal information - look for indicators that the site is secure such as a URL that begins with “https” (which indicates a secure server) or a lock icon in the status bar of the browser.  Even these aren’t 100% effective as it is still possible for sophisticated fraudsters to  forge them.

Staying ahead of identity thieves is not necessarily about making yourself 100% impervious to attack (which would be almost impossible anyway), but rather making yourself a more difficult target than the next guy on the internet. If you can remain ahead of the pack in terms of internet security then you are far less likely to face the inconvenience of having your details stolen.

Technorati Tags: ID, Identity Theft, Fraud, Phishing, anti-virus, security