Protecting Yourself From Identify Theft

Most identity theft is easy to do because of a little thing called passwords. When you create passwords for your various accounts, are they really easy for you to remember because they are based on your telephone number, date of birth or other significant event in your life? If so, you may be just asking for someone to fraudulently access your accounts! Secure passwords are necessary to keep someone else from figuring out what your password is and using it, obtaining funds or services without your knowledge and approval.

Did you know that almost 35% of the people who use online services create a password that is some or part of their telephone number? It's true and if you are listed in the telephone directory, anyone can get your password easily enough. And remember if identity theft is on their mind, they can own yours!

Others choose to use passwords that are simple strings of numbers or letters such as 123456, 098765, or ABCDEF. This is another very common error for creating passwords. Anyone can figure this sequence out with only a few tries. And if you use this type of password, you’re asking for identity theft.

The name of your pet or child is another password choice that can be figured out, at least by those who know you. Don't think that it is impossible for someone who knows you to be an identify thief. Also, most anyone can knock on your door and when greeted by you and your pet, simply ask what the cute dog's name is or the name of whatever kind of pet you have with you. And you will likely tell them.

Another frequent poorly chosen password is the name of your car make or model or motorcycle make or model. These things are readily known about you. Using the name of your profession is another poor choice for a password. Using all or part of your street name or address can easily be figured out as well.

Passwords that can easily be related to you in any way are poor choices. Instead, create passwords using a combination of letters and numbers or that is an acronym for a phrase that you will remember. One example would be "ILMPB" which a friend used. It stood for "I love mom's peanut brittle". No one else except this person would readily think of that phrase if trying to hack a password. Create a password that you can remember for each account and do not use the same password for every one. Should someone hack into one account, they won't be able to get into all your of your other accounts if you use unique passwords for each important place that requires a password.

If you must use an English word as your password, at least spell it backwards or replace some of the letters with numbers. Anything that you can do to help make it difficult for anyone to connect your password to you will help to save you potential time and money trying to fix a problem after someone has gotten into your account and stolen your identity!