You would not want to belong to the 66% of identity theft victims’ whose personal information has been used to open new credit account, nor would you want to be one of the 12% of victims who end up having warrants issued in their name for financial crimes.
Identity thieves are becoming more and more professional in their line of work. That could either be because they are indeed doing their best developing their scamming techniques, or because people are becoming less careful. Whichever explanation you believe does not take away the fact that identity theft continues to exist and identity theft protection should be exercised.
One of the ways thieves can gain access to your information is by hacking your accounts. They can do this using up to date computer software or by the old way of guessing. Just because the guessing method is old does not mean it is already inefficient. You may install different identity theft protection softwares to protect the information in your computer. But once you give off a password that doesn’t really require much thought and guessing on the thief’s part, you can very well suffer the damages of having your identity stolen.
The best identity theft protection you can do for yourself is to create the ideal password. This means that the code is difficult to guess but can be easily remembered. The following are steps to create the perfect password:
Start with a phrase or name
The first thing to do is to look for a phrase that’s memorable. You can easily lift a line from your favorite book or movie and transform it into a password. Remember that though it would be difficult to guess a fifteen character phrase because of its length, it could also be easily forgotten.
Mix in symbols
The important thing about identity theft protection is to keep information about you as private as possible. That’s why passwords should be secure. One of doing this is to mix in symbols and numbers as well as vary the cases of the letters. However, make sure that in adding symbols and numbers, the phrase you have chosen could still be held in your memory.
Guarding your password
No matter how secure your passwords are if you don’t guard them in your use, thieves will take the opportunity to get to your information. Here are three identity theft protection measures you should remember when guarding your passwords:
- Don’t write down passwords
Unfortunately for the greater population, thieves can go as far as rummaging through your trash to get what they need. Stop the habit of writing down things, like passwords, on sticky notes which you do not properly dispose. - Don’t use personal information
Special dates and obvious numbers like street numbers could be very easily guessed. Use numbers that have no meaning to you. - Change passwords often
Creating passwords does not require too much time so you can easily replace them every month or two. However, for System Level password, once every four month is recommended.
