There’s another way thieves can get your personal information, besides hacking into computer networks or digging through your mailbox. They can find it when you post it, voluntarily, on the Web. Now you may be thinking there’s no way anyone would plaster their account information in a public forum. But you could basically be doing that just by posting on social networking sites or message boards. How? By telling online friends specific details about your life.
It’s a fact that many if not most individuals use passwords that relate to their daily lives since they’re easier to remember and your online profile could have scads of this information, such as where you live, your name and the names of family members, your birth date, your occupation and even the type of pets you own. Once he or she gets access to your posts, all a potential identity thief has to do is some basic trial and error to come up with passwords you might use. You may remember that this is how a hacker got into Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s email account before the 2008 election – simply by guessing her password. More sophisticated thieves run software that check against virtually every word in the english dictionary. This is why it is important to have identity theft protection.
So how does figuring out a password translate into identity theft? Easy. Once a thief has access to one of your accounts, even if it’s just your Yahoo email account, he or she is well on the way to being able to become you for all financial intents and purposes. All the thief has to do is wait for an online banking statement to roll in or an order confirmation that has your credit card number and expiration date on it. If neither one of these incidents occur, he or she can just use the forgot password function for any site where you’re a member to get more usernames and passwords sent to that email address, since in most cases the security questions also involve personal details, such as your mother’s maiden name.
This is why there is a huge push for people to use complex passwords on even the most mundane of accounts. For example, instead of using the name of the street you live on, think of something you love about that street. Perhaps you love that the neighbors are so friendly. Use this for your password by making it “tnasf”, the first letter from each word of – the neighbors are so friendly. Then stick a couple numbers or special characters on the end to stump a thief even further. Remember, it is never a good idea to use a word found in the dictionary. Also, never use the same password for all of your accounts. If a thief is able to guess one of them, you don’t want him or her to be able to go whole hog, so to speak.
If you have trouble remembering all of these passwords, you can save them in a secure area on your computer. Then you only need to remember one password: the one you need to access that file. Also, some identity theft protection services such as Identity Guard offer you the option to let them save your passwords for you. You can access them easily either online or through your cell phone by entering a secret personal identification number. Again, you’ll still have to remember one on your own, but it’s certainly easier than recalling dozens. You may also want to look at other software programs that can manage your passwords securely for you.