Cyber crooks steal your identity and ruin your good name by taking out expensive loans, opening credit card accounts and writing bad checks. One annual estimate calculates identity theft hurt 8.9 million Americans and cost each victim an average of $6,383. That adds up to $56.6 billion in damages from identity theft alone.
Using many of the online services today involves sharing basic personal information to include name, home address, phone number and email address. Using common sense is the best way to protect against and prevent cybercrime.
Look for the “s” – Any financial transaction website should have an “s” after the letters “http” (e.g., https:// www.mystore-dot-com NOT http:// www.mystore-dot-com). The “s” stands for secure and should appear when you are in an area requesting you to login or provide other sensitive data. Another sign that you have a secure connection is the small lock icon in the bottom of your web browser (usually the right-hand corner).
Read privacy policy fine print – On many social networking and photo sharing sites, there is wording on the privacy policies that allow the website to keep information and photos posted to the site, sometimes indefinitely, even after you’ve deleted the original. While this might not discourage you from posting images or messages, understanding that the material can be retrieved and disseminated down the road is important to remember. What seems to be a harmless prank can have a devastating effect on your reputation when applying for a job or other opportunity.