Identity Theft, Are you who you say you are?

Have you ever had you identity stolen or the internet? If not you are one of the lucky few,  people who conduct business on the internet and has not in one way shape or form as the identity stolen.  It happen more often than you think and on websites we trust and is often underestimated and misunderstood by many people who take the most severe safety measures to guard privacy and safety on the Net.
Although statistically this type of identity theft occurs less frequently than other types, it is perhaps the type of ID fraud that we should be most aware of. Most people are not aware of how and when their ID was stolen but, based on these statics we can lower or prevent our ID from being stolen by taken a few precautions of the things we do with are personal information.
With internet identity theft we don't have to wait for a thief to physically steal our information. Instead, we may unwittingly hand over the information ourselves.
Information about us can be stolen by computer criminals from the databases of banks, retailers, ISPs and data clearinghouses.
However, that not the way most thieves get or information we give it to them without even knowing that we are doing it.  You know how they do, Lying of course, or should I say Phishing click here, put your information there. You think it’s your bank, your Paypal account, and just like that they have you and your information. 

based on Internet id theft statistics from a survey of 5000 U.S. adult Internet users, Gartner estimated that...

• 57 million adults have experienced a phishing attack
• 1.78 million adults could have fallen victim to the scams
• The cost of phishing... 1.2 billion dollars!

Sometime valuable that I learned in all this is that genuine companies will never ask for your personal information in this method. But, not knowing I took the bate because the emails and pop-ups look like they really come from the company indicated.

Not just with banks and but people as well. I received and email to me and this personal was talking to me like they knew me. I mean this person was typing me a 4 page letter and I was going to respond to say I think you have the wrong person. But then I thought of the time when someone spoofed my account and was sending out body part enlargement emails to everyone in my address book FROM ME.  My friends and family were like what is this crap your sending me. I said it not me, well its from you, they would say. But it really wasn't me if this has ever happened to you, whether you received one of those emails from someone you know or you were a victim you no my frustration.  So now my question is when I on, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, or Yahoo or Hotmail.  Are you who you say you are? Well my answer is this you can Never be too careful!

 

 

http://www.guard-privacy-and-online-security.com
http://www.pcworld.com/article/116163/phishing_scam_reports_jump.html

Chris Fluellen