Identity theft can occur in a variety of ways, people usually find out they have been victimized when it is too late to begin protecting themselves. With more and more people connecting to the internet every year the opportunities for identity thieves are never scarce. The internet has provided a great number of benefits to the world but along with these benefits come the ongoing risks of online identity fraud. The internet is only one medium that enables thieves to steal identities but it isn’t the only one, there are many other causes of identity theft.

Pre-Approved Credit Offers

Your personal information is traded between merchants, credit providers and the credit bureaus and unfortunately there is no law that can stop this practice, it can only be regulated. But these regulations do not properly address the security of your information as it gets exchanged. Pre-approved credit offers are one of the easiest ways to become a victim of identity theft because often these offer letters do not make it to their intended destination. Also, they are often thrown away whole, sometimes still in their envelopes. This risk can be avoided by shredding every piece of paper that contains any information of yours, but it would be best to simply opt out of pre-approved offers and one of the most convenient ways to accomplish this is when you enroll in an identity protection plan, since the plans will take care of removing your name from all pre-approved offers and junk mail lists.

Accessing to Public Records

Public records are the information that’s freely and easily available to anyone. This includes bankruptcy records, court records, fictitious name filings, marriage registration, real estate property records etc. All of this information can be accessed by anyone and it is often available at no cost. A person can get a great deal of detail about you from these records and it can be utilized to get credit or redirect your mail to an alternate location where an identity thief can receive it and learn even more about you.

Online Phishing Scams

One of the most common causes of identity theft is online phishing. This is still an effective method for identity thieves. If you have a Paypal account, you have more than likely received an email at one point or another asking you to verify your information by following a link that’s provided in the body of the email. Once you go to the website and enter in your information you’re typically redirected to a page that tells you that your information has been verified leaving you to think that you did the right thing, when in fact you just rendered your login information to the thief who operates the site. These emails are normally written to give the recipient a sense of urgency, normally expressed in the subject line that says something to the effect of “your account has been compromised” and that you must verify it now before it gets suspended. It’s a good trick that’s worked very effectively over the last five years, but more people are becoming aware that these are nothing more than identity fraud attempts.

Spear Phishing Scams

Because phishing alone is no longer as effective, identity thieves have become more resourceful and have gone so far as to target individuals specifically. This is normally done when they have learned more about the victim and realize that there’s potential for high gains by gathering even more information rather than just steal a credit card number. If identity thieves believe that you have major assets they might be able to exploit they will use more sophisticated methods for getting you to voluntarily surrender your information. This can be in the form of a direct phone call or an official looking letter from your financial institution in which they list information that looks and sounds official. They could also use public record information to inform themselves about you and sell you on the idea that they are a legitimate party trying to solve an issue for you.

Internet Security and Old Browsers

Another one of the common causes of identity theft are internet users who are simply not aware of the dangers of being connected to the internet without the proper protection. To protect against identity theft properly everyone needs to have Antivirus and firewall protection to keep malicious programs from entering your computer system. There are a number of malicious programs that can be installed on your system in passive mode that can compromise your personal information. Programs such as keyloggers are one of the many ways hackers get access to your information. These programs record every keystroke you type especially when you’re online then transfer this information to the thief. In other words any information you type can be seen by someone else including bank account login information, credit accounts and any other online destinations you normally access.

Old browsers are another serious problem that you have to address, but luckily it’s a simple fix. The older versions of Internet Explorer have a series of security holes and no one should ever access the internet using Internet Explorer 6 or below. All browsers are free to download and install, among the safest browsers available are Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Although no browser is 100% secure, you have more security features in Firefox and Opera.

Spam and pirated software

No matter how long you’ve been online, you probably have heard the word spam a number of times. Spam is a term used to describe the unsolicited emails that you receive on a daily basis that typically promote products. Spam is also a danger because of malicious code that can potentially run when you open these emails. Often these products are pirated popular software that’s offered at a huge discount. Even if you don’t buy the software, accessing the destination sites in these emails can be dangerous if your computer system is not properly protected. Also using pirated software is an easy way to fall prey to identity thieves. The software that you download free from these sites is often coded with Trojans that work silently gathering your sensitive data. So even though it may sound like a good offer, you’re better off deleting spam.