Connecting to the virtual world is a daily process. We are so accustomed to logging in to our various accounts from different sources, that we just don’t think about the possible threats that lurk beneath the information highway. With every log in, every sign up and every purchase, we give away bytes of personal information about ourselves and our daily lives and routine.

Identity fraud doesn’t just mean that someone will take your credit card details and make purchases on your card, it actually becomes much more sinister than that.

Identity thieves strive to take as much information from you as possible. They will want everything from where you live, to who you know, when and where you were born, where you went to college, everything they can get their hands on, will be used to create a fake version of you, for criminal usage. There is hope of preventing such a disastrous scenario from happening to you.

Online Identity theft, the basics:

What you should worry about online identity theft, first and foremost is, how you distribute your personal information over the web. Do you sign up for various online social media? Collectively, what personal information have you agreed to give to these sites? The answer to that question, is usually quite a bit more than you should have. Social media is an addictive and vastly popular pastime for many of us. But sometimes, the corporations behind the social media overstep the mark, and push us to give our personal information. Let’s take the example of the most popular social media platform in the world (one that shall not be named!) They started out pretty relaxed about their rules and regulations regarding mandatory information at sign up; however, through the years, they have become almost military like in their absolution of demanding your personal information, even going as far as denying you access to your account and contacts if you fail to comply with their rules. Mid corporations can do this to us, without a chance for us to dispute their right to demand so much personal information from us. The social media platform that shan’t be named, has gone go as far as to demand your identity card or passport in order for you to prove to (what authority?) that you are the person you claim to me. This to me, is unacceptable. Doing this is unjust and simply does not protect the users from Online Identity theft as has been proved many times before.

Online Identity theft can be a dangerous and scary experience, Is your identity safe? View our checklist to find out if you are safe.

• Never click a link that has been sent to you from unknown sources – it could contain phishing codes will capture your personal data

• Do you use the same or similar password on all of your social media/email accounts? If so, make sure you change each one, and write them down somewhere that they can’t be accessed.

• Make sure that every device you that you use to enter your personal information has an antivirus software. They can alert you to any attacks.

• Be careful who you add to your social media as friends. Many cyber criminals use fake accounts, to commit identity fraud for illicit purposes.

• Be careful logging into open WIFI sources, many people use WIFI as bait to access your device. Only use networks that you are sure that legitimately safe