Identity Theft — The New Normal

6 To-Dos to reduce your risk.

Published in

Homeland Security

4 min readFeb 15, 2016

John Abrahams

With the advent of technology, mass online consumerism, and more and more people shopping and making their purchases online, the rise in identity theft has increased significantly over the last 5 to 10 years. Identity theft is a serious crime and it involves the compromise and unauthorized use of an individual’s name, social security number, date of birth, and other personal information that an imposter can use to commit fraud.

The 2016 Identity Fraud Study, released by Javelin Strategy & Research, found that $15 billion was stolen from 13.1 million U.S. consumers in 2015, compared with $16 billion and 12.17 million victims in 2014. There was a new identity fraud victim every two seconds in 2014.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) who tracks identity theft statistics, helps victims, and coordinates responses by various governmental agencies estimate that recovering from identity theft takes an average of six months and 200 hours of work. However, a lot more time is spent by the victims making phone calls, written correspondence, keeping track of creditors, responding to letters, working with credit bureaus and law enforcement agencies, etc. making sure that they won’t be liable for the debts thieves create in their name.

To prevent identity theft indviduals can take a number of steps to avoid serious harm to your credit and reputation that can take years to resolve and can be very expensive for impacted individual. The following steps and preventative reminders can prove to be very helpful.

Check and monitor your credit regularly. Request an annual free copy of your credit report from any of the three major credit-reporting agencies.

2. Strengthen your password. Make sure that your password is at least 8 to 12 characters long and use a combination of alpha-numeric characters and symbols.

3. Be careful to whom you give personal identifiable information such as your social security number (SSN). Do not give out your phone number, address, SSN or any combination thereof to anyone unless you initiated the contact.

4. Be mindful and deliberate of the type of personal information you put on your social media site. The adage “less is more” is certainly appropriate and wise to follow.

5. Be mindful of the websites you visit. Click with care. Make sure that the website you intend to buy from is an eVerified site to ensure you have peace of mind at that moment you click.

6. Be aware of pre-approved credit cards and stop any unsolicited credit card offers. You can call 1–888–567- 8688. Identity thieves can use pre-approved credit cards left in you mailbox to open a card in your name.

Identity Theft — The New Normal

6 To-Dos to reduce your risk.

Written by Homeland XYZ