How to safeguard our personal and financial data?

Last year researcher held a survey to monitor trends in identity fraud and according to the Federal Trade Commission, identity theft is the most reported form of fraud. This happened not only in our country but the whole wide world as well. It involved physical (lost wallet, phone sale) and online (phishing, e-mail scam) methods.

It is crucial for consumers to understand some simple and effective methods to protect themselves against identity theft. Below is a list of precautions which I can think of.

First and foremost, do not carry unnecessary information along during outings. For example, remove excess credit card from your wallet or purse since many of us like to put all the cards inside our wallet. Second, put passwords on all your accounts and do not use common terms such as your birthday date or phone number. Try to make up a fictitious word. It is suggested to combine both numeric and alphabetic characters when creating a password. Third, be cautious on the phone. Do not disclose your personal information over the phone if you do not recognize who is on the line unless you could positively confirm the caller’s identity. If there is any suspicion, confirm with the related organization or institution on how they store your personal information and why it is needed for any application. Do ensure that the information is dispose in a proper way.

Apart from that, avoid from creating the same password all the time. Double-check that all of your utility accounts and financial services have different passwords. If one of the accounts has security breached, it will prevent all of your accounts from being hijacked. Furthermore, please do not store your sensitive data on a mobile computer like laptop or PDA. However if you find that it is necessary to do so, encrypt the information with proper software. Next, report lost or stolen cards immediately and cancel all inactive accounts. Also, do not keep open credit cards that remain unused and unmonitored. If you had applied for a new card and do not receive it in a timely manner, contact your financial institution immediately. Be sure to sign the new cards upon receipt too. Besides that, consumers can also monitor their credit card and account statements online weekly to keep an eye on their transaction. It can prevent from unknown transaction occurs.

On the other hand, if your job is involve in creating documents like secretary or admin staff, do take the responsibility to protect client’s personal and financial data by shred the sensitive documents after using it. This is to ensure information is not accessible when you get rid of it. Moreover, staff should install anti virus software on all computers and change password regularly. All these are to make sure that office information systems such as computer network will not become target for identity thefts.

Last but not least, be aware of e-mail attachments. Even if you are certain they are virus-free, it can cause you to lose data too. The best way is to ignore all these e-mail attachments and junk mails. As a saying goes, prevent is better than cure. Hence hope the above precautions could help to safeguard our personal and financial data.