Online Security Tips To Help Keep Your Private Information Private

The Saturday, Dec. 8 edition of The Tennessean had an article about Internet Security and tips to help you keep form having your personal information and/or identity stolen.

A couple highlights include the following;

• Leading estimates state that Identity theft is a $55 billion-a-year industry (if you can call it that).
• Phishing — the most common method of stealing identities online — is a form of spam, involving unsolicited e-mail to dupe the recipient into divulging personal data (such as bank account numbers, username and passwords, and even Social Security numbers).

Good information through and through, but I specially liked the listed tips that every computer user should really heed.

Online Security Tips

• Don’t use logins that rely on words in the dictionary.
• Don’t use the same user name and password for more than one account.
• Don’t do online business on an unknown Web site. Research it first.
• Mix up user names an passwords with capital and lower-case letters as well as numbers and keyboard symbols. Make logins at least eight characters long.
• Never respond to an e-mail asking you to divulge username, password, bank account numbers, Social Security numbers, or other personal information.
• If you have a master list of all your passwords and user names, keep it in a locked place. If on your computer, keep the list protected or, better yet, encrypted.
• Set Internet-security options on your browser, such as Internet Explorer, on “high”.
• Use and routinely update spam blockers, spyware-detection software, pop-up blockers and anti-virus software. keep firewalls up to date.
• Consider investing in password-management software or a password protection device, which acts like a key to unlock a computer when plugged into a USB port.
• Routinely check your bank and credit card statements for unusual spending. Review your credit card rating annually.
• If you suspect fraud, report it immediately to your financial institution and contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center (ICCC) at www.ic3.gov

Bottom line; If you’re using a computer and surfing the Internet, be mind-full of the sites you visit and the information you divulge. Also, if you think an email might be fraudulent, don’t click on any links and don’t visit any listed/linked websites. If it is a legitimate email and really important, the business and or bank will contact you via another method.

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