Top 10 ways to prevent Identity Theft

Identity theft is a growing problem and the thieves are getting smarter. Follow these tips to help you stay one step ahead! More…

1. Pay at the till. Don’t let waiters or shop assistants take your credit card out of your sight when paying for a meal. They only need a second to swipe it through a gizmo and suck all the information off it (this is called ‘skimming‘). Go up to the till to pay instead.

2. Shred-it! Dispose of your bank statements, medicare correspondence, and other papers containing your personal information properly. If you work in an office, your company may have secure disposal bins. They’re like the big wheelie bins, but are padlocked closed and have a slit in the top to put your papers into. If not, consider investing in a shredder or, if that’s outside your budget, a packet of matches (yes – burning things is bad for the environment, but if you rip out your personal information from the piece of paper and just burn that, you’re minimising the risk – both to the environment and to you!).

3. Copy-wrong. Don’t let anyone photocopy your ID. Most of the time they just need to sight it. Sometimes they need to write down your ID reference number (e.g. your drivers license number). Many times when they want to take a photocopy of your ID they don’t really need to. If they insist, ask them if they’re aware of their obligations under the privacy act and get them to tell you what they are. If they can’t tell you, don’t trust them with your personal information.

4. Whose website is it? Before entering your credit card details into a website, check a couple of things: is it a reputable site? Is the site secured (is there a padlock in the lower-right corner?)

5. User profiles. When creating a user profile on social networking or other sites, don’t provide your address and phone numbers if they can be viewed by anybody who chooses to look. For example, if you enter those details when creating your skype account, anyone can view them – even before you’ve accepted them as a contact! Aside from leaving you open to contact by random freaks and weirdos, this makes for easy pickings for identity thieves.

6. Know your credit status. Banks and many other organisations use your credit file to help determine your credit-worthiness. Your credit file is updated every time you open a bank account, get a new credit card, or do anything else that affects your credit status. Sign up to receive an email every time your personal credit file changes. Then, if you (or an identity thief) open a bank account in your name, you will be sent an email. MyCreditFile offer this service for $30 per year. And yes – I know this one is ‘detection’ rather than ‘prevention’, but I think it’s important so I’m including it anyway!

7. Type it yourself. Never follow a link to your internet banking website. Type the URL in yourself, and check for typos before continuing.

8. Be ‘social engineering’ savvy. Only provide personal information over the phone if you initiated the call. If you receive a phone call from someone claiming to work for your bank and asking you to confirm your identity by providing your account number or other personal information – don’t give it to them. This is called social engineering and it’s one of the easiest ways for identity thieves to get hold of your personal details.

9. Boring but important: Network Security Software! Install anti-spyware and virus protection, and keep the signatures up to date and run them regularly. If you have a computer at work, chances are your company does this for you, but keeping your home computer safe may be your responsibility. Check out these free ones: Spybot Search and Destroy, Lavasoft Ad-aware, and Grisoft AVG.

10. Downloading files. Be careful when you download executables or any files off untrusted sites. If the site provides a checksum for the download, check that it matches (I’ll explain how to do that in a future post).

11. Limit the potential damage. Open a credit card with a low credit limit to use for internet transactions. That way if someone steals the details the amount of damage they can do is limited.

I know – that’s eleven – but squashing it down any further was impossible!

June 13, 2007 | Filed Under article, identity theft | 1 Comment 

RSL scan drivers license

You know that RSL club that I suspected of putting me at risk of identity theft when they scanned my drivers license? Well, they’ve emailed me back again with a bit more information – now I’m really worried!

What information did they collect?

One of my questions was, had they actually taken a copy of my whole drivers license, or simply extracted the pieces of information that they needed (name, address, signature)?

The reply confirmed my worst fears – “inserting the license in the terminal scans an image of the actual license”! How hard would it be for someone with access to that image to create a copy of my drivers license? They could then rack up points on my license by speeding, or worse – by not parking rear-to-curb in a rear-to-curb-only parking spot!

Or, they could modify the image to change the postal address to their neighbour’s, then create a fake license from the modified image, use that as ID to open a credit card account in my name, get the card posted to the address on the ID (their neighbours house), and steal the license from the neighbours letter box in a few days time. Too easy!
Read more

May 29, 2007 | Filed Under case study, identity theft, privacy compliance, privacy concern, privacy matters, rsl clubs, scan drivers license | 1 Comment 

Response from the RSL club

Well, I’ve heard back from the RSL club that took a scan of my drivers license (see original post).

They answered some of my questions – and raised some more. Read more

May 22, 2007 | Filed Under case study, identity theft, privacy compliance, privacy concern, privacy matters, rsl clubs, scan drivers license | 1 Comment 

The identity theft arms race

I remember when I was about 10 years old and some friends of my parents went to Thailand for a holiday. They were reasonably well off – he was an accountant with one of the big firms and she wore fabulous faux-fur coats (back when killing animals to satisfy hedonistic pleasures was still considered uncool). So you can imagine their embarrassment when, a month or so later, their credit card was declined when they were attempting to pay for dinner with friends! Read more

May 21, 2007 | Filed Under article, authentication, credit card, faux fur coats, identity theft, key loggers, phishing, security industry, virus protection software | Leave a Comment