You shred your credit card statements, guard you Social Security number and always put your outgoing mail in a locked box, all to protect yourself from the risk of identity theft. Unfortunately, in this day in age, no matter how hard you try to safeguard your information on your own, it will most likely not be enough. The number of identity theft victims increases every year.
This is because even if you keep your information safe when conducting your personal business, you have no control over the fact that your data can be compromised when it’s in the hands of a company, educational institution or other organization that you do business with. In fact, large-scale data breaches seem to happen on a weekly – or even daily—basis in recent months.
This is not just an illusion, the instances of identity thieves compromising corporate data really are on the rise. In fact, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center, a nonprofit organization in the U.S., the number of breaches in the first six months of 2008 is over 69 percent higher than in the first six months of 2007. This trend continued over the third quarter.
Identity thieves get information from companies in a variety of ways, some of which are by stealing laptop computers or other electronic devices, by hacking into databases they should not have access to or by working alongside someone who is actually an employee of the company. (Believe it or not, this type of “inside job†made up 15.8 percent of the breaches in early 2008.) Stolen Laptops and lost or stolen data tapes add to the mix.
Plus, there are also passive ways in which an identity thief can come by the information, such as if an employee accidentally loses the information or posts it online or in an email to unauthorized users.
So, in other words, even if you are doing a near perfect job of protecting your personal information, there is no way for you to police everyone that you work with to make sure that they do the same, and oftentimes you will not be notified as soon as a breach occurs. So you may want to consider some additional help to protect your personal information from identity thieves.
This help could come in the form of identity theft protection, which is available from dozens of companies. With identity theft protection services you can put further guards on your accounts to prevent identity thieves from accessing your accounts or opening new ones if your information becomes public due to a data breach. These companies take this risk very seriously. In fact, at least one company, Trusted ID, keeps a comprehensive list of these breaches on its Web site.
Others, such as LifeLock, offer a service guarantee to help with costs you incur if you become a victim of identity theft while using the service. Without this type of protection, recovery could cost you thousands of dollars and quite possibly a substantial amount more. Not only that but they also do the strong majority of work to recover your identity saving you your valuable time, often 200 – 600 hours over a frustrating two year period.
You can’t control everything in the world of data breaches, but you can choose to make the best effort possible to safeguard yourself in the event that your name and personal information does get out there. It is time to start learning about your identity theft protection options. Find what you feel is a good fit for you and your family then use that as your identity protection plan.