Guarding Against Online Identity Theft

by Tim Trott, Cyberchute Hosting

FREE SAMPLE:

1) Use a disposable email account. Keep your business or personal email account just for business or personal communication. If you are going to be making purchases online, joining newsgroups, or subscribing to mailing lists and e-zines use a disposable email account. There are many online free accounts such as Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail, and most of them can interface with popular email clients like outlook or outlook express.

Cyberchute Hosting (www.Cyberchute.com ) can provide "alias" email addresses that funnel into a "real" email address. Using disposable alias emails  on web sites eliminates the need to inform your contacts of a "new" email address every so often when the spam levels become unbearable. Alias addresses can be easily added and removed and don't cost anything. When an alias email address begins to attract a lot of spam, the decoy alias can be deleted and the spam no longer has a way to reach you. For example, you can create a temporary alias for a specific conference or event registration, such as convention2017@Example.com. Another added benefit of an alias email address is that it cannot be used as a login, even with the correct password for the account.

2) Disguise your online identity. If your real name is Joe Bloggs try to avoid using email accounts with name like jbloggs@example.com when dealing with people you don’t know and trust. If you were born in 1970 don’t chose jbloggs1970@example.com as your email account.

3) Use different level passwords. Use one password for your personal information, use another for your business accounts and a third for your disposable email accounts or mailing lists you sign up for. Don’t use sequential passwords like password1 for personal use password2 for business, and password 3 for disposable accounts.  

4) Use strong passwords. Don’t use your birthdates, year you were married, or your children’s birthdates. Avoid choosing passwords that consist entirely of letters or numbers. Also try to avoid using passwords that are actual words. The best passwords are mnemonic phrases like “my father ate three apples for breakfast”. Take the first letter of each word and convert the number into numbers and you end up with “mfa3a4b”. A better solution is to use a service like www.LastPass.com to generate and store secure passwords. The mobile app is now free.

5) Rotate your passwords. The experts advise changing your passwords every 6 to 12 months.  Any time that you suspect your passwords have been compromised change them as a safety precaution. Even if you take precautions to protect your passwords you may still be at risk.  For example, user passwords for Yahoo.com and others have been victims of data breaches. www.HaveIbeenpwned.com   allows you to search across multiple data breaches to see if your email address has been compromised.

6) Use only one credit card for all of your online purchases. If any of your other credit cards have online transactions you know they are fraudulent. If you see offline purchases for your online credit card you also know they are fraudulent. Use credit cards instead of debit cards. While many debit cards now offer online purchase protection it’s easier to dispute fraudulent charges than to recover debit card funds that have already been spent.

7) When you make purchases or bank online make sure your transactions are secure. In the address bar you should see “HTTPS” and not “HTTP”. There should also be small lock icon in your browser. HTTPS indicates an SSL/TLS Certificate, which means the information is encrypted as it travels the path between you and the web site.

Your own web site can benefit from SSL security whether you conduct business online or not, because the HTTPS lock provides your visitors with an added level of security. Cyberchute Hosting can provide basic SSL certificates for hosted web sites at no charge. Higher level SSL certificates are available at competitive prices.

8) Check a company’s privacy policy. When you make your first transaction make sure your check the privacy policy, look for logos from consumer groups like Trust-E and the better business bureau. Click the logos to make sure they are authentic.

9) Never open or fill out email requests for you to update you account or credit card settings via email. These are ‘phishing’ scams people use to try and secure your personal information. Many of them are growing increasingly sophisticated and go to great lengths to look exactly like the company’s website using their exact logo.

10) Also beware of domain tricks, such as www.paypal.com.cn. The extra ".cn" at the end means the fake web site is really located in China. If you use a search box to find web sites rather than typing them directly into the address bar, also be sure to glance at the URL when you arrive at the web site.  If you know the address of a web site it’s a good idea to avoid using “search” to go there.  Besides, why waste time looking up something you already know?

Our e-book contains 16 chapters and 36 pages of useful information for your online protection. Request your free copy of the e-book Guarding Against Online Identity Theft by Tim Trott below: 

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Things you need to know to protect yourself, your family and your business.
Steps you can take and things you need to learn to avoid.