{"id":1022,"date":"2011-03-28T15:22:42","date_gmt":"2011-03-28T19:22:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/?p=1022"},"modified":"2011-03-28T15:45:53","modified_gmt":"2011-03-28T19:45:53","slug":"how-you-can-prevent-identity-theft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/how-you-can-prevent-identity-theft\/","title":{"rendered":"How you can prevent identity theft"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Helping you prevent identity theft \t\twhile on the Internet<\/strong>
\n<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

There’s so much misinformation going \t\taround on the Web about identity theft it’s hard to know what’s fact and \t\twhat’s fiction. It’s too bad that people will spread misinformation in order to sell you a security suite or a firewall you don’t need. It’s all about the money.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"Here’s some facts: Anti-virus and \t\tanti-spyware don’t protect you from the biggest cause of identity theft. \t\tThey may protect you from Trojans, worms, rootkits, bots, viruses, \t\tspyware, adware, and malware, but these aren’t the reasons why so many \t\tpeople get their identities stolen. Firewalls don’t protect you from identity theft – regardless of what some tech sites and vendors try to sell\/tell you – it’s just not true. In fact, you can’t rely on security \t\tapplications to protect your identity while online.<\/p>\n

It all comes down to you and your common sense.\u00a0The number one way identities are stolen \t\ton the net is because people give their identities to criminals either \t\tby typing in their passwords and user names on bogus sites that are \t\tcreated to look like the authentic site or by clicking links in phishing \t\temails that lead to these bogus sites where the proceed to input all \t\ttheir personal information. The number one way people have their \t\tidentities stolen on the Internet is not by malicious software but by \t\ttrickery and deception.<\/p>\n

Your common sense and\u00a0 your brain are the two \t\tmost important software applications you can use to protect yourself \t\tfrom fraud and identity theft while you’re on the Internet. Antivirus vendors, \t\tanti-spyware vendors and especially firewall vendors, would have you \t\tbelieve that their software eliminates the risk of identity theft. These \t\tkinds of applications do not eliminate the risk. If anything at all, \t\tthey may reduce slightly your risk of identity theft. Again, \t\tfear-mongering sells and some vendors will pull out all possible stops, \t\teven prevaricate, to get you buy their products. And we’re not saying \t\tyou don’t need a good antivirus or antispyware program – you certainly \t\tdo. But the reasons you need them have nothing to do with identity theft.<\/p>\n

Here’s the best tip we can give you to \t\tprotect yourself from identity theft while using the Internet – When \t\tlogging in to your bank account, credit card account or any place that \t\thas sensitive personal or financial information, never go to the site from \t\ta link in an email, always type \t\tthe address in your browser. After you type the address in your \t\tbrowser’s address bar, double-check it carefully to make sure there are \t\tno typos. Many bogus sites are squatting in the background on the Web \t\twaiting for you to make typos in URLs. To save yourself time, once \t\tyou’ve verified the site you’re on is the correct one (secure sites \t\talways show \t\t https:\/\/<\/strong> in the URL and you’ll see a lock icon in \t\tyour browser<\/span>). \u00a0It’s \t\tvey easy to transpose a letter or two \t\twhen typing in a URL, so double check what you type into the browser’s \t\taddress before proceeding. And once you’re sure you’re on the correct site, bookmark it or add it to your favorites. No bogus site or phishing site is going to display https:\/\/ <\/strong> – period.<\/p>\n

We cannot remind you enough: \u00a0many phishing sites will look \t\texactly like the real site – but no bogus, look-alike site’s URL \t\twill start with https:\/\/ . <\/strong>When you’re on the authentic site <\/strong>you will see a lock icon displayed in your browser’s address bar. Never assume because the site looks authentic that it is.<\/p>\n

Despite the misinformation being propagated by those who have a profit motive – or those who just don’t know – you cannot rely on a software program to protect your identity. Educating yourself and using your common sense will keep you safer than any software program ever will.<\/p>\n

We’re not saying you don’t need good anti-virus and anti-spyware software – you do. But these programs will not protect you from giving your information to criminals. Only you can do that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Helping you prevent identity theft while on the Internet There’s so much misinformation going around on the Web about identity theft it’s hard to know what’s fact and what’s fiction. It’s too bad that people will spread misinformation in order to sell you a security suite or a firewall you don’t need. It’s all about the money. Here’s\u2026 Read More »<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[764,194,765],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1022\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thundercloud.net\/infoave\/new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}