No More Thieves

While online shopping, banking and even socializing allows users to avoid painstaking errand runs and the unnecessary rendezvous, this heightened level of convenience can come crashing down if secure online information is compromised by tech savvy identity thieves. With every new frontier of innovation and possibility sadly comes another means by which conniving and deceitful individuals can take advantage of nave, uninformed victims. The technological revolution has altered the way we think about theft transforming busy-street pickpockets and back-alley muggers into far away criminals hiding behind only a computer screen. In order to protect yourself in an increasingly online era, with more and more information being readily available at the fingertips of the keyboard, it is important to know how to keep your personal info safe. Here are a few helpful tips:

1. Avoid clicking time saving “remember me” boxes Why lay out a roadmap for potential thieves directly to private or purchasing information? This is especially important on public computers. It is better to avoid using these all together just in case your home computer is stolen or compromised, after all, what’s a few seconds compared to the potential time spent recovering lost funds and ruined credit were your identity fall into the wrong hands.
2. Fully eradicate all files before selling or discarding an old computer Know the difference between merely overwriting and actually destroying confidential data. Erasing data does not fully eliminate the trace bytes that could prove harmful in the wrong hands. Physically removing the hard drive is the safest bet, as often even carefully erased or damaged hard drives can be recovered.
3. Differentiate your usernames If you use the same screenname from site to site, especially for sites in which you do so for confidentiality purposes, you are overlooking how easy it would be to track the same name from site to site and gather data accordingly. Make sure such names are not easily relatable either to each other or to your actual name if you wish to ensure more off-the-radar web surfing.