13 ways to protect personal data from online fraud and identity theft

Posted on August 13, 2007 at 9:35 pm

Make sure to read other posts from the Search History & Privacy series!

How to view recent search history for IE and Firefox browsers
13 ways to protect personal data from online fraud and identity theft
How to clear your Google search history

In our digital age, it’s becoming increasingly hard not to share your personal data, such as passwords, bank account numbers, credit card numbers, etc online because even if you prefer the two P’s when performing transactions (Paper and Phone), most companies prefer doing everything online for financial reasons. Unfortunately, some companies do not put in place the necessary stringent policies and procedures needed for your personal data to be secure.

Just as many people say that by the time the current working generation retires in 20 to 30 years, there may not be any social security system or pensions to count on and we must learn to save for ourselves, the same is true for protecting your personal data online. With spyware, viruses, hackers, etc, it is very easy for anyone to become the victim of online fraud or identity theft.

Here are a 13 measures you can take either when making online transactions or simply in your day-to-day computing life to make sure your data is not stolen.

1. Keep your personal and sensitive data off your computer – What can a virus or spyware program possible to with your personal data if you don’t store it on your computer? It’s simple and very effective. Try your best to keep bank account numbers, passwords, etc off your computer. If you want to keep it in electronic format for easy access, that’s fine, simply buy a $20 flash drive and store all the sensitive files there. Keep it in a safe place and if you need to refer to the documents, then just plug in your drive. Lots of people tend to leave their computers on for long periods of time and it can be compromised at any time, so if there is no data to steal, then you’ve already done a lot to prevent data theft! If you REALLY want it on your computer, then at least make sure you encrypt it.

2. Avoid saving credit card info, etc on shopping sites – Many web sites today, such as Orbitz, Amazon, eBay, give you the option to save your credit card info so that you don’t have to type in all the information each time you want to buy something. That’s great for them, easy money and more sales, but what about you? What if someone eventually does hack into their database (and don’t worry many people are trying everyday) and downloads thousands of credit card numbers, bank account numbers, etc? It might take an extra minute, but it’s better to not save your info on any shopping site.

3. Do not use the same password for every last thing on the Internet – Yes we all hate passwords, but hackers love people who don’t use passwords or who use passwords like “john” or “joe”. You don’t have to keep a different password for EVERY site, that would be crazy, but definitely not just one. These days just about everyone has an eBay, Amazon, Orbitz, etc account and so if a hacker figures out one password, they’ll go ahead and try to see if it works on any other site. Make sure passwords are different a more complicated. Just throwing in a number or symbol at the end will make it hundreds of times hard for a person to crack your password!

4. Always think before providing information when solicited – If you ever get an email that has a link in it that requires ANY personal information, make sure you go to the web site yourself manually by typing in the address. Half the time links in emails point to fake addresses with very close names. Also, if you post items on sites like eBay or Craigslist, you will always be bombarded by scams from Nigeria, etc that sound way too good to be true (like someone would actually pay more for your item than what you listed it at)!!! And just because a web site exists does not mean it it legitimate! If you’ve never heard of the site before, just type it into Google once and see if anything like “XXX IS A SCAM” pops up!

5. Only connect to secure wireless networks if you can – If you have a home wireless network, secure it quickly! Connecting to non-secure wireless networks is asking for trouble. At the place I work, the sales people’s computers constantly have spyware on their computers because they connect to lots of insecure hotel wireless networks constantly. Avoid them at all costs!

6. Clear your browser’s cache after an online transaction – Sometimes your browser will save certain information you typed into forms, etc when you are online, so it’s always good to clear that after you’re done. Here’s an article I wrote previously on how to clear your browser history. Also, if you get that message sometimes from your browser asking you whether you want it to automatically save your passwords, etc, click NO. It’s another small pain, but it might help you one day!

7. Make sure anti-virus and anti-spyware are installed and up-to-date – This, of course, should be obvious. You can either buy excellent anti-virus programs like Kaspersky Anti-Virus or free programs like AVG, which is pretty good too. Either way, make sure you have something installed. However, most people usually stop there and don’t install any anti-spware programs. That’s a big mistake! Nowadays, spyware programs send your data to their creators so they can make money. Some good anti-spyware apps are Windows Defender, SpySweeper, SpywareBlaster, AdWare, and Spybot Search and Destroy. I have three installed on my computer!

8. Turn your computer off or on standby when you’re not using it – This might sound low-tech and it is, but it’s really effective. This is kind of like the first tip, if your computer is not on, then what can a hacker, virus, or anything else possibly do? Nothing! So if you have a desktop at home, make sure you turn it off or put your laptop into sleep mode when you’re not there. Why open it to attack if you’re not even using the computer?

9. Make sure the URL has an HTTPS instead of HTTP – The S makes all the difference! You’ll notice that when you buy something from Amazon or another big site, once you being to checkout, the URL always starts with a HTTPS. This means that the communication between your computer and their server is secure and encrypted. If someone tries to read the data as it travels across the Internet, they won’t be able to understand or decipher it. If you’re buying something from a smaller site and they don’t have HTTPS, just call them and buy it. Not worth risking data passing unencrypted over the net.

10. Use a secure Internet browser when you are online – Firefox is considered more secure than IE and that’s what a number of sites also have tested. Personally, I use Firefox and you should consider it if you’re using IE 7. IE 7 has more security features than ever before, but it still has lots of holes also. Using a more secure browser can help protect against browser hijacking, etc. Anyway, most viruses are written for IE since it’s more common, so it’s more likely to be hacked.

11. Lock your computer at home and at the office – This is another one of those tips that most people don’t think about, especially at your office. If you leave for lunch and your computer is just on without a password-protected screen saver, what will stop a snoopy co-worker to get onto your computer and look through your My Documents, etc? It may not seem likely, but it can very well happen and it’s better to press CNTRL-ALT-DELTE and press Lock Computer or put a password on your screen saver than have some co-worker copy your tax returns from last year!

12. Be careful who you give your computer to when it needs fixing – Unfortunately, if you’re not a tech person, you probably have to hand over your computer to someone else when something goes wrong. I’ve done a lot of computer fixing and one thing I’ve noticed is how ridiculously easy it would be for me to download ALL of their personal information to my external hard drive or flash drive. People simply trust technical support people too much. If someone is going to fix your computer, have then come over to your house and just watch as they do it. When you’re off in another room while they fix your computer, they can also be copying your entire hard drive for themselves.

13. Use advanced techniques like encryption, anonymous browsing, virtualization software, etc – Lastly, if you really want to do more than just the usual, you can encrypt your data, browse the Internet anonymously, or run IE or Firefox in a virtual environment. The advantage of the latter is that you can actually catch a virus or spyware program in the virtual environment and it won’t affect your operating system at all. You can read more by searching “virtualization software” in Google.

Remember, don’t be afraid of the Internet, it’s a great way to make your life easier and can be a safe place as long as you follow some simple common sense rules. Even if you never use a computer, your identity can still be stolen from the paper that your throw out in your trash!

[tags]identity theft protection prevention, online fraud, stop avoid identity theft, online identity theft, identity theft tips, id theft, stolen identity, prevent credit card theft[/tags]

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

6 Responses to “13 ways to protect personal data from online fraud and identity theft”

Jane said on : August 14th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

Excellent article. I learned something. Very helpful. Thank you.

akishore said on : August 14th, 2007 at 1:09 pm

Hi Jane, thank you for the comment! I appreciate it! These days one has to be very careful out there, yet many people do not think about it until it happens to them. Good to be proactive!

Maxwell said on : August 20th, 2007 at 10:43 am

Excellent, well written article. I was going to try and think of a point #14 but I believe you have covered all the bases there.

Richard FDisk said on : August 30th, 2007 at 6:27 pm

I’ve a question and a half about point # 8. “turning off” the computer.

I’ve had a few people tell me that if I don’t go into the BIOS and disable “Wake on LAN” or however it’s worded for any particular BIOS that has this “feature”, that even though the PC appears to be off, it’s actually in “Deep Sleep” and if someone sends (whatever hacking they do) to the network jack on your PC it will start up and do whatever they tell it to?
and the only other way besides going into BIOS is to actually pull the network plug from the jack or flip the switch on the power bar so that the PC is actually off.

how much of it is truth?

(one of my new PC’s has the “Wake on LAN” setting in BIOS but I don’t have it connected to anything any way.)

Cheers
RfD
__

also, just an add on not really part of internet ID security but I thought I’d mention it anyway because IE 7 was mentioned in one of the subject points;

Internet Exploder 7 & WiMPlayer 11 > watch out about updating to these on XP systems that have older software on them especially CD/DVD burning Apps. ie. Roxio products, etc. These programs will be rendered totally useless by these updates, and no amount of uninstall – reinstalling will fix it because a hugh part of the “kernel” is altered by the updates.

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