Identity Theft Prevention Guide - 17 Prevention Tips to Protect Your Family
Follow these Identity Theft Prevention Tips to minimize your risk of becoming a victim:
- Carry only the identification information and the number of credit and debit cards that you’ll actually need.
- Keep your personal information in your home secure, especially if you have roommates, employ outside help or are having service work done in your home.
- Guard your Social Security Number. It can be used to open new accounts, credit cards, or even get a job in your name.
- Cancel unused credit card accounts.
- Don not carry your SSN card; leave it in a secure place.
- Ask about information security procedures in your workplace or at businesses, doctor’s offices, or other institutions that collect personally identifying information from you.
- Order your credit report and monitor it often.
- Remove your name from the marketing lists of the three credit bureaus to reduce the number of pre-approved credit offers you receive.
- Buy a crosscut shredder. Shred all old bank and credit statements and credit card offers before throwing them in the trash.
- Make copies of the contents of your wallet - in case your wallet or purse is stolen.
- Do not leave mail with personal information in your mailbox.
- Never give your credit card number, social security number, or other personal information over the phone unless you trust that individual and/or business.
- Protect your personal information on your computer by installing a firewall and updating your virus protection.
- Do not print your Social Security or Driver’s License number on you checks.
- Carefully examine the charges on your credit card and bank statements.
- Place passwords on your credit card, bank, and phone accounts.
- Subscribe to an identity theft prevention service that will notify you whenever someone tries to assume your identity.
Article Provided By: Identity Theft Prevention Guide
http://identity-theft-prevention-guide.com
Provides up-to-date prevention tips, news, scams, laws, and more on America’s Fastest Growing Crime…Identity Theft.
How to Thwart the Barbarian Spyware!
Today,on most internet user’s computers, we have the
ability to employ software, along with our
intelligence, to prevent viruses and spyware.
To put this article into proper perspective, we’ll use
Medieval defense tactics.
This is accomplished by 3 methods. First, a firewall…
‘The Castle Moat’ so to speak. A firewall can’t see
inside your computer beforehand though, so if any viruses
or spyware were present before the firewall was installed
then its of no use. Of course, its extremely good at preventing new
attacks.
Second, a anti-virus program…. ‘The Castle Drawbridge!
They will not provide much help with spyware, but good
virus protection is as desirable as one of Avaris’s
dreams! One drawback can be the updates, of course.If
you’ve just updated Wednesday night and a virus hits the
next day, then you may not be protected till next
Wednesday night, and by then it may be too late. If you’re
smart, you will have signed up for email alerts with
the provider, or even better, you’ll have a anti-virus
program that has a real time update feature. I get the
tingles when I see that little pop-up saying a update
is available and click here. Its downloaded ,installed,
and updated in about 20 seconds! A new virus or Trojan or
God forbid, a new keylogger can hit the internet and spread
in a matter of days, and I’m sure this must make the definition
writers lives a living hell. I have great admiration for
them as they could have been wealthy doctors, but they have
chosen to help us… the end users. (moment of silence here)
Last, we have anti-spyware programs,’The Flaming oil’! (my favorite).
Their update features are like the anti-virus programs,
so you have to be as vigilant with this method of defense
too as you would be with the others. I’ve heard there are
people out there that don’t even know when their
updates run, or even if its configured to do so! I
refuse to believe this sordid rumor!
So you’ve got your defenses set up, you’re looking good.
But the best defense is a good offense, attack!
That’s what some organizations do. They prowl the net
looking for websites that harbor drive-by downloads,
URL Re-Directing and such. When they find them, they
shut them down, or report them so effective protection
can be manufactured. These people have my sincere
thanks for what they do. With identity theft on the
rise and Websense reporting that the average computer
has 28 items of Spyware on it, we need all the help we
can get. Oh sure, you’re saying not my computer !
Well, lets discuss those little boxes that you click
“I Agree” to when you download something. Do you read
the entire statement? This is one way spyware has
become so rampant, because so many downloads have extra
software included in them. These can be harmful to
your computers well being. KeyLoggers, popups, adware, malware…
Need I go on?
So my idea is that we need these shining knights from the
castle to journey forth on a quest. They will be
little robots or spiders like the search engines use.
They will be given absolute power over harmful
programs they find. They will be like Gort in the
movie “The Day the Earth Stood Still”.
Dell recently reported that 12% of their calls were
for spyware damage, Microsoft says half of their
reports of system crashes are caused by spyware. These
calls cost these companies millions of dollars in
revenue, which they then pass the costs of onto us,
the consumers.
Who knows, if viruses and spyware ever get controlled,
the average computer may only cost a dollar!
About the Author: Doug Woodall has a web site at http://www.spywarebiz.com
There he provides free information and recommended products to combat Spyware.
His Website is recognized by Learning Fountain and ISafe
Doug’s Articles have earned him Trusted Author Status at ImpactArticles.com
He is a member of the IWA (International Webmasters Association)
Article edited for proper content by Wendy McCallum
Permission to copy ok as long as about author info remains with article.
Copyright 2005 SpywareBiz
Tags: adware, identity theft, malware, spywareAre You One Of The 90% Affected By Spyware Or Adware
I am one of those people who have a go go life. And I am not too interested in fixing things unless it is affecting me. With that mentality is how I used to handle my computer; As long as the thing ran I was happy.
But the problem arose when in my go go life my computer was starting to slow me down. Which I think is one of the most frustrating things in life, when you are trying to go to some website and you just sit there waiting for it to pop up. You get up, go to the bathroom or take care of something, and come back. And there it is a blank screen.
Now many things can cause this, but in my case it was Malware.
Malware is (malicious software) and is any program created with the purpose of causing damage to a computer system or endangering the security of a computer system. These can include viruses, worms, trojans, spyware and adware.
Viruses and worms will replicate themselves and pass from one carrier to another. They can spread on their own or after the user takes some action, like opening e-mail, running a program, etc.
Trojans get their name from the famous historical Trojan horse. Trojans can get onto your system and hide there by appearing as something else. It appears to be harmless, but contains a little something extra that the user isn’t expecting, yet it can end up deleting everything on your hard drive, or it might install or change a program.
Spyware and adware (which this article is about) will work in such a way that when you download a free picture, or wallpaper, music, movie, etc., at the same time you will be installing a program that monitors your key strokes and sends that information back to a third party via the Internet.
Spyware and adware are horrible things and are probably the worst offenders of Malware.
In today’s world where the Internet is so big, nasty people are finding more and more clever ways to steal your identity and in general MONEY.
Now adware, like spyware, will slow your computer down and will keep redirecting you to other sites and you will receive loads of pop-ups.
The most common ways that spyware gets into your computer is as follows:
1. By free software like screensavers or P2P file sharing programs which you download, such as Kazaa. It installs adware onto your computer even though it claims to contain “no spyware.” Another one is Screensaver.com.
2. Opening e-mail attachments that are spam.
3. Opening pop ups
4. When the website that you are visiting automatically downloads the spyware.
Sites to be careful on, especially if you want to ignore this article, are sites such as:
1. Gaming sites
2. Music downloads
3. Adult sites
4. Celebrity sites
5. Screensaver and wallpaper sites.
Hopefully I have gotten this article out in time to those people who are like me and are just content to do nothing about protecting themselves until is too late. If it is too late and you think that you are already affected, then there are solutions that I will explain.
First, you delete everything on your hard drive. You will loose any data that wasn’t backed up. It is very time consuming but will work quite well.
Second, you restore your operating system and all of your software. After that, restore any files that you had backed up. You may want a professional with specific skills to do that.
Third, if you aren’t too badly affected, try some free trial spyware removal programs and they will tell you what you have on your computer relating to spyware.
There are some free adware sites but you have to be VERY careful of those because a lot of them are bogus and will end up giving you spyware. They will delete the competitors but will add theirs to your computer instead.
Here are two pretty good free ones that you can look into.
1. Adware 6.0 - this one will get you daily updates, easy to use interface, and fast scanning to delete the most common spyware and adware on your computer.
2. Spybot Search and Destroy. - This has an immunizer built in it, and it will automatically work with your Internet browser, not allowing you to go to known bad sites that give you viruses. It also allows you free daily updates so you can be protected against the most common spyware/adware.
Just remember that people will go through great lengths to infect your computer and hide it from the average user so they won’t be able to find it and remove it.
But don’t feel defenseless. I am here to tell you how to get software that will totally clear up all your problems. One suggestion is to do a little research on your own. Find out more about this enemy of yours so you can feel totally comfortable with the product that you get to remove the spyware and adware from your computer.
When getting spyware removal software, you will want the most up-to-date version on the market. Big name companies will usually always be safe sites to visit.
I also recommend that you get the spyware removal that offers you a free scan of your computer which will produce a report of the spyware or adware currently infecting your computer.
The downfall of these compared to their paid counterparts is that they don’t come with as many features. You have to constantly remember to download up dates. And as mentioned before free programs tend to be more likely to be a hoax.
About the Author: Jesse Hjartarson is owner of www.One-Stop-Resources.com, a site dedicated to providing the most comprehensive information on just about anything.
For a free report on how to make sure you don’t become Malware’s next unsuspecting victim, visit the site for his top 5 solutions:
http://www.One-Stop-Resources.com/recommends/malware
For a Free report on how to make sure you don’t become Malware’s next unsuspecting victim, visit http://www.One-Stop-Resources.com/recommends/malware
Tags: adware, identity theft, malware, pop ups, slow PC, spyware
