5 Valuable Tips to Prevent Identity Theft

Identity theft is a type of fraud that occurs when a criminal gains access to your sensitive personal information, usually through fraudulent means, and uses it for financial gain. More than 4 million Americans were victims of fraud and identity theft in 2023, with cumulative losses totaling in the billions of dollars. In many cases, people who have had their identity stolen can be forgiven for the financial burden by resolving the issue with their bank or credit card issuer, credit reporting agencies, and the Federal Trade Commission. However, if you’re careful about sharing sensitive data and employ other precautions, you can significantly decrease or even eliminate the possibility of having your identity stolen.

Here’s a look at some of the best strategies to protect against identity theft and fraud.

Do Not Give Out Sensitive Information

Most importantly, do not give out your personal information, whether through phone call, text, or email, to anyone that you don’t know or can’t verify as the person they say they are. Phishing scams are one of the most common ways that criminals gain access to personal data, such as home addresses, credit card numbers, and Social Security numbers. Scammers will often pose as telemarketers, banking representatives, or law enforcement, and use scare tactics to pressure people into giving them sensitive information, which they then use for financial fraud.

If you receive an unsolicited call, text, or email from someone demanding your personal information, hang up or ignore them and get in touch with the organization they claim to represent through verified channels. Law enforcement or government agencies will never call and threaten you or ask for sensitive information, so ignore these phone calls altogether. Similarly, exercise caution when opening emails from unknown sources, as scammers often create fake websites that might resemble official websites of companies like PayPal or Amazon, but are designed to steal sensitive information either through fake password log-in pages, or by downloading malware. Fraudulent package delivery sites (UPS, FedEx, for example) are becoming increasingly common.

Be Careful When Shopping Online

The FTC received nearly 80,000 reports of online shopping fraud in the first six months of 2024, with combined losses exceeding $85 million. While seniors generally lose more money in these scams, young people aren’t excluded. People between the ages of 20 to 29 lost an average of $500 in online shopping fraud, usually by using a payment app (PayPal or Venmo) to make purchases on fraudulent websites.

Scammers will often use targeted social media posts on platforms like Facebook or X, formerly known as Twitter, promoting deals that seem too good to be true. Be wary of submitting your credit card information and other sensitive data to any website that looks suspicious and doesn’t have the padlock icon in the left corner of the search bar. You should also search the company on Google to see if they are legitimate or if other consumers have shared negative experiences.

Utilize 2FA

A strong password with a combination of numbers, letters, and special characters is key to preventing scammers from accessing your accounts, but it’s often not enough. In its 2023 Threat Horizons Report, Google Cloud revealed that 86 percent of account breaches were due to stolen passwords. Two-factor authentication (2FA) provides an additional layer of security, requiring the person trying to get into the account to provide something only the account holder has access to, such as a fingerprint or voiceprint or a randomly generated PIN sent to the user via email or text.

You can enable 2FA for most apps, including banking and social media accounts. When enabled, criminals won’t be able to get into your accounts unless they have your phone.

Use a VPN

Using public Wi-Fi is a major security risk, as hackers can easily access the network and steal your personal information. A virtual private network (VPN), however, encrypts all data before it leaves your device, meaning prospective hackers receive random letters and numbers rather than actual information that can be used for identity theft. VPNs also protect your sensitive data from remote hacking, session hijacking, cross-site scripting, and other malicious cyberattacks.

Sign Up for ID Theft Protection Service

Registering for an identity theft protection service is the easiest and most effective way to prevent fraud. Preventing ID theft or fraud is actually a misnomer, as we all have too much of our personal data out in the cloud, or with various important entities in our lives ( hospitals, labs, doctors and dentists offices, motor vehicle bureaus, educational institutions, employers files, etc.), and cannot actually prevent a breach at any one of these sources. While receiving alerts, and having credit bureau monitoring is important, the key on the identity theft protection front is really having a restoration plan if there is a serious breach suffered. Since restoring your identity to pre-breach status can potentially take a lot of time, effort and money, it is best to put in place a comprehensive protection and restoration plan, such as the ID Shield plan, which uses licensed private investigators from the Kroll Group to restore your identity, rather than you having to do all the heavy lifting by yourself. These products, including plans from Identity Guard, and Aura, safely store all your sensitive data in one place, which is great for people who have trouble tracking and remembering multiple passwords. Some even bundle multiple digital security products, including anti-virus software and VPNs, to provide complete protection from malicious actors.