Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in the world: experts believe that someone’s identity is stolen somewhere in the world every two seconds.
Yet most people believe it cannot happen to them until it is too late and their credit worthiness has been destroyed.
Identity thieves are getting smarter and faster at stealing consumers’ personal information, consumers have to act smart and stay ahead of them. There are steps consumers can take to better protect their personal information, as well as products that keep watch over their identity, even when they can’t.
Here’s some tips to protect yourself against identity theft:
Ensure all your private correspondence stays private.
Lock your postbox;
don’t throw old accounts away without first destroying them;
don’t leave personal documents lying around where others could see them;
and protect your online identity.
Here’s some tips for creating strong passwords:
Different account? Different password. If a thief steals from one of your accounts, don’t make it easy for them to steal from others.
Don’t be obvious. The first passwords thieves will try are ones like:password, 1234567890 or similar.
Be random. Pick something obscure. Don’t use your name and stay away from real words
Misspelling is good. If your password is “I hate yellow” replace some letters with numbers and symbols like “1 h8 y3Ll0w
The longer, the better. The longer the password, the harder it could be to figure out.
Use a mnemonic. Think up a sentence, such as “My favourite colour is green,” and use the first or last letter of each word as your password (“Mfcig” or “yErsN” in the example).
Yet most people believe it cannot happen to them until it is too late and their credit worthiness has been destroyed.
Identity thieves are getting smarter and faster at stealing consumers’ personal information, consumers have to act smart and stay ahead of them. There are steps consumers can take to better protect their personal information, as well as products that keep watch over their identity, even when they can’t.
Here’s some tips to protect yourself against identity theft:
Ensure all your private correspondence stays private.
Lock your postbox;
don’t throw old accounts away without first destroying them;
don’t leave personal documents lying around where others could see them;
and protect your online identity.
Here’s some tips for creating strong passwords:
Different account? Different password. If a thief steals from one of your accounts, don’t make it easy for them to steal from others.
Don’t be obvious. The first passwords thieves will try are ones like:password, 1234567890 or similar.
Be random. Pick something obscure. Don’t use your name and stay away from real words
Misspelling is good. If your password is “I hate yellow” replace some letters with numbers and symbols like “1 h8 y3Ll0w
The longer, the better. The longer the password, the harder it could be to figure out.
Use a mnemonic. Think up a sentence, such as “My favourite colour is green,” and use the first or last letter of each word as your password (“Mfcig” or “yErsN” in the example).
