How To Avoid Identity Theft

Security expert and investigative journo Brian Krebs has recently published his thoughts on the seemingly incessant data breaches and what you can do to help avoid becoming a victim of identity theft – including his take on credit monitoring and security/credit freezes.

When somebody with Brian’s credentials offers advice in this area, it’s well and truly worth heeding:

If you’ve been paying attention in recent years, you might have noticed that just about everyone is losing your personal data. Even if you haven’t noticed (or maybe you just haven’t actually received a breach notice), I’m here to tell you that if you’re an American, your basic personal data is already for sale. What follows is a primer on what you can do to avoid becoming a victim of identity theft as a result of all this data (s)pillage.

A seemingly never-ending stream of breaches at banks, healthcare providers, insurance companies and data brokers has created a robust market for thieves who sell identity data. Even without the help of mega breaches like the 80 million identities leaked in the Anthem compromise or last week’s news about 4 million records from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management gone missing, crooks already have access to the information needed to open new lines of credit or file phony tax refund requests in your name…

• Continue reading Brian’s in-depth article here: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Embrace the Security Freeze