Protecting Against Data Theft

How to keep yourself to yourself…
Data theft has become the Achilles’ Heel of the digital age. It may sound innocent – the word ‘data’ – but the theft of it can mean that anyone can impersonate somebody. Not to actually live their life, but to use their financial record to carry out fraud. The methods of accomplishing this, are diverse and can range from going through your garbage to find discarded letters or mailers; through to sophisticated software that infects your computer and sends out your personal data.
Regardless of your age, data theft is a big concern, and not just of the wealthy. A thief who is able to impersonate someone through mail and personal details, can often fraudulently run up tens of thousands of dollars in their name, and there are very few checks and balances in place to prevent this from happening. The only time you realise is when you are refused credit or your mortgage application is bounced.
The best defense is to view your data in the same way you would your wallet.
Be careful of phishing email.
The internet gives an identity thief power. For all the good attributes that it has – giving people a voice – it however, it has a dark side.
In 2014, over one billion emails were sent every day, a huge percentage of which were identified as automated spam or ‘phishing’ emails, designed to solicit personal data from the unwary. Emails can be designed and built to look exactly like official communications from your bank or a recognized retailer such as Amazon or PayPal.
When you receive such an email, don’t click blindly. Check the originating address, check the grammar and spelling and pay special attention to any active links in the document. Frasudsters all use these tricks to lead people to ‘trap sites’ which may appear to be a legitimate site, but are actually intended to upload malicious code to your PC or record any inputted information to pass on to criminals.
If you are in any doubt, don’t use the link in the email but log into whichever company using a URL that you know and trust or call the company directly to verify the email.
Protect your devices.
It seems like a no-brainer right? Make sure your home PC, laptop, tablet and smartphone are all protected by a robust password? How many times do you allow a friend or colleague to ‘just look’ at something on one of your devices while you attend to a call of nature or put the kettle on? Long enough for a USB stick to be inserted into the device and upload code? Probably.
To be safe you can create a separate user on your PC. Under a guest sign in name, you can easily allow anyone to use your PC without any of your data being risked.
If you are in doubt about anything you receive via email or any sites you visit then change your passwords and double check your accounts for any errors.