Identity theft is a perfect storm: it affects many people, everyone is a potential target, there are substantial negative consequences, few truly understand the crime, and trusted sources disseminate information and products that can mislead, not help, the victim. It is comparable to driving your car without a door (and having no other options). You feel exposed, vulnerable and you know the consequences of a side impact are devastating; yet, you have no other option. The reality is you do have options to protect yourself, and The Official Identity Theft Prevention Handbook is here to teach you them.

The Official Identity Theft Prevention Handbook is the first book to analyze identity theft in its proper context and provide takeaways to minimize the likelihood that you will be harmed by identity theft and to mitigate the negative consequences in the event that you’ve become a victim.

Identity theft continues to proliferate, and it is tearing the fabric of our society. All understand it is important, but compelling people to take appropriate action is a challenge. The Official Identity Theft Prevention Handbook provides a tremendous first step towards individual and societal responsibility. We can swing the pendulum in the other direction. In the case of identity theft, the best defense is a good offense.

We befriended strangers with the same gusto as we befriended our old folks, on the Facebook, but soon it started turning out to be a wrong move, as some of the friends on FB started misusing the privilege that we gave them by making them our friends. This made us think,

Was it a mistake to befriend strangers on Facebook?

The answer would be yes. It was a mistake to trust strangers, as some of the strangers you befriended on Facebook included stalkers and identity thieves. The goal of these mischievous people is to talk innocent people into adding them to their friend list, only to use the information provided by you for their personal benefit.

Protect your online identity on Facebook

One way to protect your personal information on Facebook is to avoid befriending strangers, but this is not the only thing you have in your hand, and you may not need to take such an extreme step to protect your identity on Facebook. Below I am giving you an alternative way to protect your identity on Facebook, even when you make friends with absolute strangers.

Limited visibility for strangers

When you make friends with stranger, make sure you do not give them unlimited access to your profile. There is a feature in Facebook that allows you to classify friends in groups. You should classify strangers in one group and allow them limited visibility.

Remove address and phone numbers for profile

It is a mistake to post your phone numbers and home address on Facebook profile. You should never do it. If you need to share it with your friends then do message them, but never put contact details on Facebook for public viewing.

Make your photos private

You should not allow strangers to view your photographs. The default setting should be on private, and you should only share your photographs with those whom you want to give access. Always give custom access to photos and make default setting to invisible for all.

Following these steps will help you stay safe on Facebook, even when you befriend with strangers.

But the sad part is, the very feature of Facebook which help us connect with our folks also makes us vulnerable to vicious attacks from identity thieves. All hopes are not lost, though, there are ways to prevent identity thieves to use your Facebook profile to create a fake identify to get financial or other favor from the system.

4 steps to protect your identity thieves

Step 1: Beef up your security

Go to the privacy setting of your Facebook account and change the setting to either custom and select individuals who you want to give access to which section of your blog, or at least, change the setting to “Friends only”. Remove any “everyone” or “friends of friends” option from key fields. Do not let them see even any photograph, other than the one visible in your profile photo.

Step 2: Remove your personal information

Many people, particularly kids and teenagers have this bad habit of putting their street addresses, phone numbers, and all personal details on Facebook profile. This is a serious security flaw, and should be taken care of.

Remove all your personal information from info section of Facebook, and instead of posting it there, send the information to your friends through mail or Facebook message, should someone need that info and you trust that person to share your details with him or her.

Step 3: Hide your photos and videos

Do not allow strangers or even friends of friends to see your photos or videos. In fact, you should limit the access to your wall and albums to friends only. This is an important step towards protecting your identity on Facebook.

Step 4: Mobile alert

Along with it, you should set a mobile alert for all signing attempts from “non-authorized” computers, and do not authorize each and every computer to access your Facebook account. Only allow the ones that you will use frequently.

In case you have to authorize a computer in the cyber café for the purpose, then duly deauthorize the system before logging out, or from your system.

Conclusion

Keeping you antenna out to look for mischievous behavior in your Facebook account is very much required. If you cannot do that, your identity will be at risk.

In two easy-to-understand sections, Terri Cullen, The Wall Street Journal’s expert on identity theft, first walks you through the most common types of identity theft and how to arm yourself against them, and then leads victims step-by-step through the process of reclaiming a stolen identity. The average victim loses more than $6,000 and spends approximately 600 hours negotiating the complex bureaucracies and paperwork—this book will help save time and effort by laying out the process. And by following the advice in the first half, you may never need the second!

You’ll learn:
• how to avoid the most common scams, from “phishing” to “dumpster diving”
• why children under eighteen are the fastest-growing target, and how you can protect your family
• why your credit report is the single most important document for protecting your identity
• how to use the sample letters, forms, and other useful tools inside for recovering from identity theft

In today’s marketplace, your two most valuable assets are your credit and your identity. No one should be without this vital guide to protecting them.

“This book will open your eyes, scare you smart, and make you think twice. Identity theft can happen to you and this book is a must read. Jim Stickley tells you why and how you need to protect yourself.”

Matt Lauer, Anchor, TODAY Show

“Nowadays, identity theft is an all-too-common occurrence that puts more than just your finances in jeopardy. Fortunately, Jim Stickley’s easy-to-understand advice can teach you how to spot and stay ahead of security threats. In short, this book is a must read.”

Wes Millar, Senior Vice President of CUNA Strategic Services

“In an age when identity theft will affect everyone sooner or later, this book is simply a must-read. Jim Stickley teaches you to spot the danger signs and offers smart solutions for everything from banking security and online shopping scams to medical identity theft. Whether it’s you, your parents’, or your kids’ identities, everyone has something to protect. This book tells you what you need to know.”

Jim Bell, Executive Producer, TODAY Show

“Jim Stickley shares his amazing experiences as a professional hacker in the most entertaining manner. He’s a great storyteller and captures your attention with his experiences, which will make you want to upscale your efforts protect your firm’s data and your own ID. Jim’s stories are fascinating. Most of us can’t imagine how simple it is for him to succeed as a conman in situations we think are safe. The trade secrets of hackers he shares with us are mind boggling! You won’t let your guard down after learning what Jim has actually done to get companies and individuals’ private information. He’s the updated version of ‘To Catch a Thief’[el]but he’s a good guy!”

Nancy E. Sheppard, President & CEO of Western Independent Bankers (A Trade Association of 350 Banks)

“If you’re not worried about identity theft, you should be[el]and Stickley tells you exactly why. His engaging writing style, coupled with real-life stories about identity theft and concrete actions to help you prevent identity theft are exactly what’s needed to make people take notice of this growing crime. I’ll recommend this book again and again!”

Jerri L. Ledford, About.com Guide to Identity Theft

Everything you must know to protect yourself and your business from identity thieves!

• The truth about real-world identity theft attacks

• The truth about how easy it is for thieves to make off with your identity

• The truth about stopping identity thieves in their tracks

Jim Stickley has stolen credit cards, hacked Social Security numbers, robbed banks, and created fake ATMs. He has broken into armed government facilities and has stolen from teenagers. He is an identity thief, but he is no criminal. Fortunately for all victims involved, Jim was hired to perform these attacks by corporations testing their security, news agencies investigating security concerns, and other media outlets interested in knowing just how easy it is to commit identity theft. His job is to find security flaws before the real criminals find them. This book has been designed to give you the insight that most people only experience after becoming victims of identity theft. Each Truth walks you through a different type of attack, explaining the complete process in a very simple and straight-forward way. Like a magician actually revealing what happens behind the curtain, Jim takes you through the attacks to reveal how people at home, work, and on the road become victims. Prepare yourself. What you read here might be disturbing, but you will never be truly safe from identity thieves until you learn to think like one.

To all those doomsayers, I have this to say: nothing is going to happen if people stay alarmed.

This is not the first time, we are hearing such uproars from the far corner of the room (remember Y2K problem?), but seldom anything has happened because people are alert.

Having said that, I am not discounting the threats posed by identity scammers, but shunning a new development is not the solution. The solution is to stay prepared, and this is where our website on identity theft prevention helps you. Here again, I am going to tell you about 4 telltale signs, noticing which will save you from becoming victim of identity theft.

4 telltale signs that you are being attacked by an identity thief

1. Tapping on the greed in human nature, an identity thief will try to give some irresistible one-time offer, which according to them is being presented to you only because they are (the company the thief says he represents) honored in serving you. And he will also tell you that the offer will end as soon as you put the phone down, and you will never get a second chance to avail the benefits promised by him.
2. He will ask you to confirm your details — every bit of your details. They will want to make it sound natural, but get alert when a person from your bank or wherever ask for your details because if you are their customer they already have your details.
3. He will call you from unusual number, not the regular one you receive your bank’s call from. Do not give any detail on an incoming call.
4. He will ask for financial details. No matter who is calling you and from where. Do not share your credit card or bank details with any on phone. Do not even share your social security number.

Be on the look for any suspicious activity or piece of communication you receive, and stop talking to the person as soon as you smell something fishy. You can protect yourself from identity theft by following the suggestions given above.

Safeguard your family from Identity theft on phone

The knowledge of what tricks an identity thief uses to make you reveal your personal information to him. This is the only hope. Nothing else could be as effective a tool in fighting identity theft as information is. To this end, I am going to share with you some tips that will help you protect your family from identity theft attempts over the telephone.

Do not share any detail with the person acting as a bank representative on an incoming call. You never know if the person on call is who he says he is or not. If you need to talk to your bank or any other organization, call on its registered customer care number then give the details you are asked for. Do not share anything of value on an incoming call.

You should get alarmed, if a person claims to be from your bank, office, government, PayPal, or any other trusted organization and asks for any of the following details

1. Your credit card information
2. Your debit card information
3. Your social security number
4. Your bank account number and other details
5. Your driving license number
6. Your passport number, etc.

In short, anyone asking for your personal details cannot be from where he says he is, as a legitimate employee of the bank already have these information with them, and at best they want to reconfirm by asking you if such and such is your address and other details or not. All you have to say is yes or no. Do not disclose anything to a person on phone without proper verification of his or her identity.

Best of all, how many times have you clicked on any such links? You have become victim of a phishing attack, even if you, innocently, clicked one single time on any such link. This is how millions and millions of people are victimized.

Not anymore!

Read this article, and you will know how to spot a phishing mail the moment it hits your inbox. I will tell you about some of the telltale signs of a fraudulent mail. They are:

A subject line that promises impossible, or at least something improbable

Yes, this is what they say. How could you win a million dollar when you have not participated? And why your bank will deposit $100 or more cash in your account for nothing? Banks have not become saintly, and not planning to become anytime soon.

A phishing mail has one agenda: cater to the recipient’s sloth and greediness. They also attack your libido by promising to show you something you always desired to see.

A fake urgency

If you will not do it now, the world will come to an end, or at least this is what you are made to believe. Our mind naturally reacts to emergency situations. Marketers know that, con artists know that, and so does phishing mail senders. They know if they show that if you are not acting now the treasure they are promising will be gone. And guess what, many people give in to the temptation.

Genuine looking fake link

Well, the link send to you do not look fake. They look genuine, but are always fake. Do check the URL of the link text by pointing your mouse cursor to the link text and looking at the bottom right corner of your browser, where the actual links are shown on mouse over. Do not click before you look at it.

Even when you click the link, do not forget to cross check the address bar to find that the link in the address bar is the one you intended to be on.

Genuine looking fake from address

Every message comes from somewhere or other, and so does phishing mails. But a phishing mail does not show the actual sender’s e-mail ID, but it shows a fake mail id of a person from the company the mail pretend to be.

Check the full header of the mail to see where it actually came from.

Bomb in an attachment

Yes, they do have bombs. A virus bomb, or may be a trojon or a worm or a spyware or a keylogger bomb. Whatever they are, the goal of such bombs are to destroy your property, as is the goal of any bomb. Do not open any attachment, unless you are 100% sure that it is safe to open one.

Keep these things in mind, and you will never become a sitting duck to a phishing attack.

I believe in this, and that is the reason why I have decided to first inform you about the workings of phishing scamsters. The mere knowledge of their working will save you more often than you can care to imagine. So let’s get started with reading mind of a phishing scamster.

How phishing works

The phishing net used by the scamsters consist of three things:

1. A cooked up story enticing you to take action.
2. A link to a website that looks similar to the one phishing email claim to be.
3. A landing page that looks entirely like the website of the company a phishing mail claims to originate from.

How each of the elements is used?

To make a phishing mail believable, a scamster designs a mail that looks identical to the mails you receive from the company which phishing scammer is pretending to be — bank, credit card websites, PayPal, etc.

Against this background, a story is weaved to make it believable to the audience, so much so that the readers click the link sent in the mail. Such mails are sent in abundance to anyone and everyone using all the possible media.

The readers are then taken to a website that looks entirely like the website they would see on the other side of the original link the scammer is mimicking, expect for one thing. The URL is not the same.

These tricks rests on the fact that not many people verify the URL, HTTPS prefix, and presence of padlock on a website before keying in their username and password. And sadly, almost all the phishing attacks succeeds in fishing critical information — typically usernames and passwords of bank accounts and other financial institutions — from lot many users.