Preventing Identity Theft
Part 2

Identity theft happens when your personal information is accessed by someone else without your explicit permission. Identity fraud occurs when criminals take that illegally obtained personal information and misuse it for their financial gain, by making fraudulent purchases or withdrawals, creating false accounts, or attempting to obtain services such as employment or healthcare. Here are some tips to highlight the most effective ways to fight identity fraud:

1. Limit the information on your checks. It may be convenient to have your driver's license number or social security number imprinted on your personal checks to save some time when you write one, but if it falls into the wrong hands it reveals too much information.

2. Analyze your credit report annually. Now it is possible to get a free look at your credit report once per year. The big three credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) joined forces to provide free credit reports to consumers through annualcreditreport.com. You should review it to make sure the information on it is accurate and also make sure that there aren't any accounts on there that you aren't aware of or any other suspicious entries or activity.

3. Protect your Social Security number. Do not carry your Social Security in your wallet with your driver's license and other identification. You should never use your Social Security number as any part of a username or password that you establish and you should never divulge it to telephone solicitors or in response to spam or phishing scam emails either.

4. Stay safe online. Protect your computer like you would protect your personal financial information by turning it off when you are away, using a firewall and regularly updating the operating system and all software.

5. Protect yourself from phishing. Visit a web site by typing the full web address into your web browser, not by clicking a link. Look for the "s" in "https" as well as the lock icon in the lower right corner of the screen when engaging in financial or sensitive transactions because it indicates an encrypted session.

To read Part 1 of Preventing Identity Theft, please visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-itcs/itsecurity/identity-theft.cfm.

For more information about identity theft regulations, please visit http://www.ecu.edu/cs-itcs/itsecurity/regulations.cfm#ID.