The internet is vast landscape of money-making opportunities. Some are legitimate but many are methods for others to take something of high value from you: your identity. Online identity theft is a fast growing venture whereby the thief is able to co-opt your name, identification number, bank accounts, passwords, etc and use it for their personal gain. These schemes are usually multi-layered, international systems that are hard to trace and even harder to persecute in the court systems of many countries. There are several predominant methodologies the criminals use, as well as, ways to protect yourself.

The main point of entry into your information is the world wide web. As you interact with web sites, you provide your information in exchange for theirs. The thief has at his disposal; impersonating websites or professional looking unknown websites, cookies that act as key loggers once you have left the infecting website and malicious code wittingly or unwittingly downloaded. The easiest defense against these are observation and diligence. Be sure to look for “https” in the address bar for websites that present themselves as reputable banking and merchant vendors. In addition, you can set browser to refuse cookies or limit their access to your information.

Theft of your good name can also be performed through social engineering emails, or “phishing”. The email detailing your sweepstakes winning or rich foreigner looking for an account to hide money is ALWAYS a scam designed to wrest information and/or checks from you. The email has thousands of variations but one single thing in common, they want some information or canceled check from you before they can process your share. Once again, the best defense is simply to avoid these operators, don’t open emails from people you don’t know and don’t give out details through email.

There are more ways for the identity thieves to secure your information than this, including straight out theft of your wallet or purse. In this case the best course of action is to alert the authorities and your banking institutions and credit card carriers of the theft as quickly as possible. In a matter of minutes a thief can max out your cards and clean out your bank account, so time is money! This is also a good argument for not carrying your social security card with you, as that number is hard if not impossible to change.

Lastly, there are a few proactive steps you can take to protect yourself. An identity protection service can act as a firewall between your digital self and the rest of the world, through filing papers with credit tracking companies and actively looking for your information in known criminal databases you will be alerted if anyone tries to impersonate you online or in person. You can also talk with your bank and credit card about setting freezes on your account or alerting you if certain types of purchases or additional lines of credit are requested. Through careful observation, perseverance and intelligent interaction on websites, you can avoid the specter of criminality that is identity theft.