Helping Seniors Prevent Identity Theft – Part 2
Last month, in our first installment of this series, we covered the topic of identity theft, and offered some helpful tips for minimizing the likelihood that you will be the victim of this particular type of fraud.
The focus in that piece was on the theft or misuse of identification documents, credit card numbers, or lettermail bearing personal information. But these are not the only methods for identity thieves to perpetrate their crimes.
Here are some additional pointers that pertain specifically to your online activity:
Privacy Settings
Smartphones, tablets and laptop computers all come with certain pre-set privacy settings out-of-the-box. Many of these are over-generous in sharing information and allowing access. You (or a trusted tech-savvy family member) should adjust these setting so that the information transmitted from your device is restricted; you may even want to consider adding enhanced security features where your device allows for it.
Also, learn how to disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth when not in use, and ensure that your own home Wi-Fi is behind a password, and is not “open” to being used as a hotspot by neighbors and other users.
Social Media
In a similar vein, you should turn your mind to the security settings you have enabled on Facebook or other social media. The very nature of such sites is to promote information-sharing, so savvy fraudsters can sometimes glean enough personal information to convincingly impersonate you elsewhere. Or, they may themselves set up convincing fake profiles through which they engage you online, to obtain your information under false pretenses.
Setting Up Accounts and Online Purchases
Whenever you are conducting online banking or online shopping, make sure you are dealing with a website that uses encryption. Look for an URL address that begins with “https:” (i.e. with the “s” at the end), and on Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox there will also be a padlock icon to indicate this.
That designation means that all communication between you and the particular website are encrypted for security.
Email and Solicitation of Personal Information
By now it’s probably common knowledge that computers can be infected by pernicious viruses and malware that install themselves in the background, unbeknownst to the user. You can easily minimize the risk of infection by being especially vigilant around opening suspicious or unfamiliar email attachments.
Finally, never provide personal information to suspicious callers, or on websites that may impersonate banks or government institutions. Legitimate organizations do not require private personal information to be submitted by such informal means.
In next month’s final post in this series, we’ll offer some “practical tips” that seniors can use on a daily basis to protect their personal information.