IdentityTruth's Eight Identity Theft Warnings

By David Sims

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

IdentityTruth, an identity theft monitoring service, has issued a warning to consumers about how everyday activities like using their phone, browsing the Web and shopping can increase their risk of becoming victims of identity theft.

“The way we live can actually provide many more opportunities for criminals to target us as victims of identity theft,” says Steven Domenikos, CEO of IdentityTruth. “Most people don’t think about identity theft until it happens to them, and miss opportunities to protect themselves from being victimized.”

Earlier this year TMC (News - Alert) had the news that IdentityTheft gave its top 10 tips for avoiding ID theft in 2010.You'll have to hit the link for those, too much good advice in one column is harmful to your health.


Domenikos has a list of eight everyday activities which he says increase an individual’s risk for ID theft, and he's willing to share them with you:

Phone Home: While Apple (News - Alert) vets all iPhone apps, some others - notably Android Market - do not. Fake banking apps have been discovered on Android Market and have been subsequently removed, 'but not before they were downloaded and used by an unnamed number of victims,' he says. Apple isn't immune from phishing scams, but they're safer.

Staying Connected: Social networking sites are the culprit here. Besides the spam friend requests that are received, presumably in an effort to get past the spam e-mail filters, there are the add-on helper applications that pose just as much a danger as the rogue smart phone apps referenced above.

Check that URL: In October 2009, ICANN approved the user of non-Western characters in Web addresses. Beginning in mid-2010, one will begin to see addresses in Arabic, Greek, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Cyrillic and others. With certain foreign characters looking like western characters, it is easy to see that the scam artists will use these to impersonate valid sites.

It’s in the mail: When you receive applications for “preapproved credit cards in the mail” be sure that you open and shred the enclosed materials before throwing them away: 'According to the US Department of Justice, criminals may retrieve those applications to try and activate the cards for their use without your knowledge.'

Longer Log-ins: A recent report from Imperva shows the most commonly used passwords, including “123456” and “iloveyou' makes you easier to target. Choose complex passwords that include both letters and numbers.

To reply: If you get an e-mail from any institution -- be it your bank, your credit card company or the IRS -- asking that you reply with sensitive personal information, do not respond under any circumstances.

Trash that: Dumpster Diving is where criminals comb through trash looking for personal financial information -- cancelled checks, bank statements, credit card statements and more. Shred any and all documents containing any personal information.

Shop till you drop: Double check all receipts from stores and ATM's - they may contain account information that identity thieves can use.