Identity Theft: How to Avoid Becoming a Victim

Identity theft is a huge problem in the United States.  According to some statistics, in excess of nine million people are victimized in this way every year.  The consequences of identity theft can be grim.  People who have their identities stolen may find that loans are taken out in their name, that their credit card is run up to its limit and that their bank account is run down to zero. 

You can avoid identity theft, however, by learning a little bit about how the Internet works and by paying attention to what you’re doing online.

What is Social Engineering?

By and large, most identity theft scams involve one form of online social engineering or hacking.  A very common way that this type of attack is perpetrated is to send out spam e-mails that warn the recipients that something is suspicious about their PayPal account, their bank account or another account.  The e-mail will contain a link that leads to what appears to be the appropriate page for that account. 

For example, if the identity theft scam targets PayPal users, the link will lead to a page that looks exactly like PayPal.

When you get to the page to which the e-mail links, the identity theft scam moves onto its second phase.  The page will be set up in a way that is convincing enough to get you to enter your username and your password into the appropriate fields and, just as you do every time you visit the real page, to hit "submit." 

The problem is that those credentials don’t actually go to the page you think they’re going to.  They go straight to a hacker who then uses that information to get into your account and to access your finances.

Fighting Back

While there are some pieces of malware and some viruses that are designed to provide a way for criminals to engage in identity theft, the best way to fight against this is to be aware of what you’re doing online at all times. 

First and foremost, whenever you’re at a website, check to see what the address actually is.  If you’re on PayPal’s site, for example, the address will always start out as PayPal.com.  If there is something else typed before the PayPal, even if it looks official, you are not on the real PayPal site. 

Additionally, any time you are logging into a site, the address bar should read HTTPS instead of HTTP.  The "S" refers to the fact that you are on a secure server.

Future Prevention

Make sure you always have antivirus software installed on your computer and that you have an active firewall.  Apply all of the updates that your operating system requests when they’re downloaded. 

It’s also very helpful if you report any e-mails you get that are attempts to phish you, which is hacker slang for getting someone to fill in the type of page that allows them to perpetrate identity theft. 

Identity theft is a widespread problem but, truth be told, a great deal of that problem stems from the fact that people are very careless and often lazy online, and that they make identity theft far too easy a thing to do.