How to best protect your identity in the new year

The risk of identity theft is all around us. Whether you’re sharing your personal information at the doctor’s office, swiping your debit card at a big-box retailer or simply throwing away your bills without shredding them, it’s possible for your sensitive data to fall into the wrong hands.

Retailers and financial institutions do as much as they can to protect consumer’s data, but there are steps you can take to further protect yourself from identity theft.

What you’ll learn:

• The importance of keeping your guard up
• Censoring personal details on social media
• Phishing scams that target your identity
• Identifying fraudulent charges on your credit card accounts

The importance of keeping your guard up

Simple common sense goes a long way toward preventing identity theft. Carry only the information and cards you need in your wallet and leave the rest at home. Additionally, don’t freely give out your Social Security number and store it in a safe place such as a lockbox or locked in a filing cabinet at your home. When you need to provide someone with proof of your identity, ask if whether providing your driver’s license or birth date will suffice.

You should also consider investing in a document shredder to dispose of credit card offers that arrive by mail, to quash the possibility of someone opening a card in your name. Having a shredder will also come in handy for shredding other documents that may have sensitive information, such as bills or bank statements.

It is also good practice to never share your passwords and to make sure you update your passwords often with words, phrases and character combinations that are not easily guessable. When shopping online, ensuring that you are doing so on secure websites will also help to protect your identity. You’ll know a website is secure if the web address starts with https://.

Censoring personal details on social media

Details you put in your profile — your date of birth, hometown, spouse’s name, etc. — might elsewhere be answers to security questions that would let a crook gain access to your account. Instead of picking security questions with identifying factors, use ones that are more obscure if possible. At the very least, keep an eye on your favorite social media site’s privacy settings, which can change suddenly and leave you more exposed than you thought.

Phishing scams that target your identity

Fraudsters are constantly coming up with new phishing scams to try to steal your information. These are emails, texts and other messages meant to trick you into giving over sensitive personal or financial information. They might contain the right logo or seem to come from a valid email address. They might even appear to come from a family member or trusted friend. Still, beware.

Before opening or clicking on a link in an email, ask yourself a few questions such as: Does it seem weird that your daughter is writing, in a voice that doesn’t sound like her, to ask you to transfer some money? If a message seems at all suspicious, do not click on the links inside, as they might contain viruses or other malware that can be used to steal sensitive data from your computer. If you want to follow up, open a new browser window, go to your financial institution’s website and find out how to contact customer service.

Other common red flags of phishing emails include:

• Spelling and grammatical errors
• Requests sensitive data
• Links that don’t match the domain
• Unsolicited attachments
• A “too good to be true” offer
• A sense of urgency

If you receive an email, text or another type of message that you believe may be part of a phishing scam, don’t click on any of the links or download the attachments. Instead, contact the company directly to verify legitimacy.

Identifying fraudulent charges on your credit card accounts

Monitoring your accounts regularly is a great way to spot unusual activity. You’re entitled to one free credit report from each of the three major credit-reporting bureaus yearly through AnnualCreditReport.com, but you may want to purchase your credit report more often to check for accounts you don’t recognize (you can do this directly from Equifax, Experian and TransUnion).

Financial institutions — Alliant included — will also monitor your accounts for fraudulent activity, but be sure to report any unauthorized activity that you notice as well.

While the above ideas aren’t groundbreaking, they’re familiar recommendations for a reason. No one is immune from identity theft, but being vigilant definitely helps.