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Identity theft is one of the fastest growing crimes in both the United States and world-wide. According to a U.S. Secret Service estimate, consumers across the country lose $750 million per year through identity theft. Each victim, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, can expect to spend $1000 and an average of over six hundred hours to clear their name in the credit records.

Thieves use a variety of means to access a victim?s information. They may steal it by taking it from a business or other institution. They may find a way to bribe or blackmail someone who has legitimate access. They may hack into records. They can even use so-called social engineering to obtain the information from someone unwittingly. Theft or fraud can easily be committed once your information is in the hands of an identity thief.

One of the juiciest targets of an identity thief is your personal computer. Your PC most likely has everything needed to impersonate you in nearly any situation. Here are some tips that will help protect your computer (and you) from being vulnerable to an identity thief.

• Use virus protection software always and make sure it?s updated regularly. Most AV (anti-virus) packages have an option to retrieve updates on a regular basis.
• Make sure that your operating system is kept up to date with critical patches and hotfixes. Windows XP, for instance, can be set up to automatically download and apply updates.
• Never open a file, click on a hyperlink, or download a program sent to you by a company or a person you don?t know. Even if you do know the person, always be wary of opening attachments, even if they ?look okay?.
• Only reveal your personal and financial information through SSL (Secure Sockets Layer). You will know you?re using SSL when the ?lock? icon shows up in your browser window. This helps ensure that your information cannot be seen by anyone while it?s in transit over the internet.
• Be careful what you store on a laptop. Some 95% of stolen laptops are never recovered. Are you ready to have everything contained on your laptop become publicly available? If not, drive encryption should be considered.
• Delete all information on a computer before selling, giving away, or disposing of it. While it may not be practical, you should consider destroying the hard drive. If not practical, consider degaussing or destroying the information contained on the drive.

Through diligence and attentiveness, you can reduce your risk of being a victim of identity theft. While you can?t eliminate the risk completely, you can cut it down severely by protecting your information as seriously as you would your money.

Mike Tetreault is an accomplished developer and systems architect. He is also the managing principal of Macrocosmic Technologies and its PrivacyOnTheGo product line which offers a solution to the security and privacy issues faced by people who use multiple or public computers.

Identity theft crimes are not new, but they have become more persuasive in the past decade. In mid-2005, San Francisco Chronicle discovered that holders of more than 40 million credit cards were vulnerable to financial fraud because identity thieves had compromised their credit card information. Earlier that year, information and data broker, Reed Elsevier Group PLC, revealed that several hundred thousand people might have had their profiles stolen from one of its U.S. databases. One quickly learns to secure their computer networks so that these kinds of attacks, or leaks are non-existant.

Information compromised included names, age, physical descriptions, mailing addresses, Social Security, and driver license numbers. This is virtually everything an impersonator needs to set up a clone of the identity theft victim, enabling him to make a number of financial and personal transactions in the victim's name. Usually an identity theft victim is usually under age forty, while about 11 percent of victims are age sixty or older. According to Federal Trade Commission (FTC), one in six identity theft victims said that thieves used their personal information to open at least one new account, such as credit card accounts or loan accounts, to rack up debts on existing accounts. The most recent data indicates that 9.3 million Americans (or 4.25% of all adults) are victims of ID theft on an annual basis. This is an alarming rate and should show you that you NEED to take preventative steps toward protecting your identity.

An identity theft victim risks the destruction of his/her good credit history, and may spend years, and large sums of money restoring the credit history and goodwill. There are instances of an identity theft victim been denied work or insurance or been detained for crimes he did not commit! Some victims of ID theft found that their names have been misused after police stopped them for a traffic violation and discovered that there is a warrant for their arrest. There are also times when an innocent person receives a summons to appear in court to answer for a criminal act. FTC's latest survey shows ID theft losses to businesses and financial institutions total $52.6 billion annually. Recently, Federal Trade Commission launched a website annualcreditreport.com where all consumers are eligible for a free copy of their credit reports. Take the time to go to that site and get your free credit report. This can be a step to alerting you to suspicious activity.

Keith Londrie II is a well known author. For more information on Identity Theft, please visit Identity Theft for a wealth of information. You may also want to visit keith's own web site at http://keithlondrie.com/

Identity theft, one of the most frequently reported crimes in America, is a federal crime under the Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act. Identity fraud occurs when a charlatan illegitimately uses your personal and/or financial information to use your credit accounts, tap your bank accounts, get new credit in your name, file fraudulent tax returns, get cell phones in your name, access your insurance benefits, and so on. For years, the primary cause of identity fraud has been good old-fashioned or low-tech analog crime. Charlatans rummaging though mailboxes, snatching purses or searching the garbage for discarded bank statements or credit card receipts used to be prime examples of identity thieves. Identity thieves use what we call dumpster diving to increase their odds of finding someone's indentity information for their use.

Rapid progressions in technology have seen a plague of sophisticated phishing email attacks. These emails persuade the reader to click on links leading to false web sites that look similar to online banking sites, online auction sites (for instance, eBay), or online shopping site (for example, Wal-Mart). One of the more alarming ways that pretenders steal your ID is via spyware, or bugs that search your system for personal information and anonymously send it to someone over the Internet. Identity thieves also use key-loggers to watch and report every keystroke you make. To protect yourself against these types of threats you should install identity theft software like a firewall on your computer such as ZoneAlarm, McAfee Personal Firewall, or Norton Personal Firewall to block unidentified outgoing traffic from your system to the Internet. The small investment in these forms of software will go a long ways in providing you protection.

You should also consider installing comprehensive identity theft software like a security suite, such as McAfee Internet Security Suite, Norton Internet Security, or ZoneAlarm Security Suite. In addition to virus protection and firewall software, this identity theft software includes tools to keep your personal information safe and secure. The functionalities of all these identity theft software are similar. You enter sensitive information, such as your bank account, credit card, and Social Security number into the software. Then, whenever you send your personal information via email, type it into a web site, and so on, this identity theft software sends you an alert. It protects you against ID fraud by ensuring private information is never relayed from your system without your knowledge.

Keith Londrie II is a well known author. For more information on Identity Theft, please visit Identity Theft for a wealth of information. You may also want to visit keith's own web site at http://keithlondrie.com/

As business owners, we owe it to our employees, clients and our communities to give a second thought to identity theft, before thieves do. Identity theft is not primarily a high-tech crime. Think of dumpster-diving, stolen wallets, credit cards or checkbooks. Think of postal fraud, theft of personal papers from cars, homes or businesses. A recent research reports shows that only 11.6 percent of identity theft crimes are committed on computers. Your business should be considering every measurable step to safeguard the information you handle each day. Here are the Top 4 Reasons Why:

1. To protect your own business by safeguarding proprietary information.
Embezzlement, theft, and other types of white-collar crime are easier in the information age. There are many different variables to utilizing stolen information about your business. In one case, a phony computer company stole the identity of a Computer Firm and used it to buy more than $100,000 worth of merchandise. In other cases thieves have gathered enough information to take on the identity of trusted businesses to target their customers.

2. To protect your customers' privacy and prevent identity theft.
Recent news coverage about the loss of customer information by large corporations underscores the potential risks of all businesses, including lawsuits and bad publicity. Consumer documents containing personal information can be harmful to both consumers and businesses, if they fall into the wrong hands. The most utilized information includes: insurance documents, medical & prescription drug information, old tax records and business records ? all contain information that can be used to create new identification documents.

3. To protect your employees' privacy.
Identity thieves generally look for things that contain someone's name, address, phone number, Social Security number, insurance and bank information. These types of items are prevalent in most employee files. If you are not handling these files with the proper care, you are putting your past and present employees at risk.

4. It?s the law. New regulations require proper destruction and protection of certain types of information (HIPAA, GLB Act, FACTA). Document shredding is an approved method of destruction.
New federal and state laws require businesses to destroy any documents that contain private consumer information before it is discarded. The new laws focus on financial institutions, institutions that deal with consumer finance and credit, and health care organizations (hospitals, insurers, retirement homes, doctors' offices, drugstores, etc.).

In most cases, it's recommended that a professional document destruction company handle the destruction of documents. For more information related to on and off-site document destruction go to: http://www.a1sj.com/docdestruction.html

Much has been publicized about what individuals should be doing; however, businesses also must act to protect themselves from identity theft. Businesses are LEGALLY accountable for:

? Developing strict privacy policies.

? Training employees on handling confidential consumer information.

? Protecting personal or private consumer information

? Developing a records-retention policy and discarding process.

? Properly destroying and resolving files containing private consumer information that is no longer in use.

Information can be stolen from either traditional paper files or their electronic equivalent. Never treat personal information carelessly, no matter how many safeguards you have in place.

Brian Lane
A-1 Document Destruction of South Jersey
http://www.a1sj.com/docdestruction.html
Cherry Hill NJ 08003
856-424-8393
On Site / Off Site Secure Document Shredding & Disposal
HIPAA Compliant, GLB Compliant
Serving NJ, PA, NY & DE

Everyday more and more consumers are falling victim to identity theft. In fact, the mere act of identity theft is growing at an alarming rate as more and more people find themselves victim of this insidious crime. Millions of dollars continues to be lost by consumers who are unaware that their personal and financial information has fallen into the wrong person's hands. Fortunately there are some simple steps that you can take in order to help prevent identity theft from taking place. This article covers 6 tips on preventing identity theft.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #1 ? Never, I repeat never give your social security number to anyone unless it is an absolute emergency or is truly required to perform some function. Instead only be willing to use the last four digits of your social security number as a means of verifying who you are. Many companies have now adapted this method as one means of verifying your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #2 ? Always make sure to check your end of month bills, especially your credit card bills in order to spot any charges that may not have been placed by yourself. Additionally make sure your bills actually arrive since many identity theft thieves are known to steal your mail in order to gain access to your personal information.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #3 ? Routinely order your credit report from one or all of the big three credit reporting agencies in order to check it for any errors or accounts that may have been opened or originated due to identity theft fraud. If you find a discrepancy on your credit report notify the respective credit bureau immediately in order to fix the problem and ensure that it was not a result of someone attempting to hijack your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #4 ? Whenever you are asked to choose a password for any type of account or login make sure and take the extra step to formulate a password that will be difficult for an identity theft specialist to solve. Always avoid using easy to crack passwords that use your birthday or your spouse's birthday as the password. These types of passwords are common and make easy target for thieves after your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #5 ? Try to avoid giving out any of your personal information over the phone, in person or online if at all possible. One of the simplest ways to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft is to keep your private information private. Failure to do so can make you an easier target for someone to hijack your identity.

Identity Theft Prevention Tip #6 ? Always make sure to shred any type of financial documents or paperwork that contains any of your personal information on it before throwing it away. This simple act, which can be done rather quickly and easily, will help to thwart any type of attempt on your identity by an identity theft thief. Don?t underestimate the power of safeguarding your personal information. It is your number one defense against preventing identity theft from happening to your or your loved ones.

Identity theft is a terrible crime and major source of frustration for anyone to have to go through. Utilize these 6 tips on preventing identity theft to safeguard your own personal information. These simple but effective tips will help keep your information where it belongs, in the privacy of your own safe keeping.