Does the Internet Contain Info that Puts You at Risk?

Most of us have an online footprint of some sort. And with tools like Google it’s not hard for other people to find our footprints and discover where they lead. In an effort to keep in touch with friends and family, reconnect with old college pals or even get back in touch with old colleagues for professional purposes, you might be unknowingly leaving a trail of personally identifying information that can lead savvy identity thieves right into your bank account or other similar resources.  

Online resumes, blogs, and social networking can lead to identity theft if they are mined for details by professionals who rip people off for a living. But just what are these people looking for? And how can information from a source like a blog lead someone to your bank account?

In one documented case, a guy typed a woman’s name and her place of employment into a search engine and yielded both a blog and an old resume. On the old resume he found a college email address and on the blog he found all kinds of personally identifying information—grandparent’s names, mother’s maiden name, pet’s name, birth date. From there he was able to reset the password to her email account by answering her security questions with information he found on the blog. Then he reset the password to her bank account (since he now had control of her email). It was that simple. Really.

Here’s how seemingly harmful information can lead to the theft of your identity if you aren’t careful.

Six Mistakes People Make That Can Lead to Theft of Their Identities

1. Having a public email listing that you use for personal email. If your company requires you to have business email address that appears on the company website or in an online directory, that’s fine. Just don’t use it for anything but work. Don’t use it as your log-in email for bank accounts or credit cards or anything else. Because knowing your email address can be half the battle for an ID thief who wants his or her hands on your money. In many cases, an email address is half the information needed to log in to online accounts.

2. Putting personal information on an online resume. Your home address and phone number might seem like necessities when you are applying for a job, but if you are posting a public resume they could be all an identity thief needs to begin stealing your identity. Just by knowing your home address and your name a thief can begin having your mail rerouted to another location so he or she can open new credit through the pre-approved offers being sent to you or by hijacking existing accounts. Using online resume posting websites isn’t harmful in and of itself, just limit the personal information you include and write something like, “Withholding personal information for identity safety purposes. More information is available upon request.” Most legitimate employers will respect that.

3. Using your first and last name in a blog profile. If you want to keep a blog so you can keep your friends and family informed about the current happenings in your life, do yourself a favor and register the blog under your first name (or a nickname) only. And don’t make any references to your full name (or the full names of your loved ones) anywhere on your blog. That way, if an identity thief is looking for information on you, your blog won’t come up in a search for someone with your first and last name.

4. Posting pictures of your house and joining “networks” for the city in which you live. Most online networking sites allow you to join neighborhood or community networks to help you get in touch with others in your area. But joining a group like that gives identity thieves (who may be mining your profile for information) a good idea about where you live. If you post a photo of your family standing in front of your house at Christmastime, a thief might be able to locate your exact home if you live in a small community or a distinct house.

5. Answering online security questions with legitimate answers. Almost everyplace that requires you to have a password also requires you to have security questions too. That way, if you ever forget your password, you can simply answer the security questions in order to gain access to your account. That’s great. But a high percentage of identity theft cases can trace the crime back to an acquaintance (or closer) of the victim. So, that means an identity thief might have the answers to your online security questions which can give him or her access to taking over your accounts. So, do yourself a favor and answer your security questions with phony answers. Just write them down and store them in a safe location. Don’t type them out and keep them on a computer as it can be harder to track who has access to that information. 

6. Ignore the benefits of purchasing identity theft protection like ID Secure. Most people assume that identity theft isn’t really as big of a threat as it is. The concept of between nine and ten million people having their identities stolen a year is foreign to them. So they blindly go about leaving a trail of electronic footprints behind them leading right up to the threshold of their identities. Even by taking every precaution possible to safeguard your identity, there are still factors outside of your control that can lead to fraud. A simple task like swiping a credit or debit card could be all it takes to put you at risk if the store where you made your purchase experiences a security breach. In an electronic-drive world you cannot have too much protection. For just $12.99 a month a professional identity monitoring company will use advanced web crawling technology to search the internet and public records to make sure that your social security number, credit and ATM cards and other personal information isn’t being fraudulently used in any way. ID Secure makes sure your identity is being monitored 24 hours a day seven days a week helping to keep it safe. If fraudulent activity is suspected, you will be informed immediately. You can learn more by clicking here.     

You might not be able to completely eradicate all traces of your online footprint, but you can take certain precautions to help ensure that you aren’t leaving an entire trail of footprints that might be putting you at risk. Make sure your ID is secure today.