Identity theft is one of the serious hacking attacks that can harm anybody. As the name implies, this crime is done when someone is stealing your identity for their own good. For example, using your bank credentials to withdraw all your money. It’s terrible, and that’s why it’s important to understand what it is, and how to be more protected against it.
Other than stealing personal details, identify theft also targets all other aspects of your life, including social security number, home address, date of birth, and many more. By using your sensitive data, the hackers can commit fraud by tricking others or directly causing huge losses in your account.
Surely, this attack can cause a lot of consequences, both in terms of mental and financial. You can easily get serious damages once your personal data is stolen. We have to take proactive actions to get more protected against this type of hacking attack.
If you’re wondering about how to more protected again regain control of your stolen identity, see the complete information below:
How To Regain Control of Your Accounts
In this first section, we’d like to explain about how to regain control of your stolen account. Yes, it might be hard to do, but it’s still doable. If you spot some signs that somebody is accessing or at least trying to access your account, then you have to take immediate actions to prevent even worse things from happening. And here’s how you do it:
1. Change Your Passwords Immediately
When someone is trying to access your accounts, you may receive some notifications about it. If you do receive these notifications, better change all your passwords immediately. Do this on every account you have, whether it’s entertainment, or crucial accounts.
By changing your passwords immediately, you can prevent the hacking attempt to succeed. And yes, you have to do it immediately, even better right after you receive the notifications of logging attempts.
If you often use social media, you might also receive notifications about someone trying to access from specific locations. You can delete this login information and make sure that the one who can access your account is you.
2. Check All Your Accounts Regularly
Even when everything seems to be fine, you still need to check your account immediately. Make it kind of a routine. Check from the most crucial accounts first, like banking accounts, office details, or your student data. Then, move along to the other accounts you also think are important, like marketplace accounts, subscriptions, and many more.
If you notice any unfamiliar activities, change the passwords and contact the related institutions immediately.
3. Report The Identity Theft
If you’ve already fallen a victim to identify theft, report it immediately to the authorities. You can try to contact the local law enforcements or other related parties, like the Federal Trade Commision to take legal actions.
4. Freeze Your Account If Necessary
To prevent further financial loss, you can freeze your account temporarily. If your bank account is affected, contact your bank immediately and ask them to freeze your credit. Hackers will use your personal data in any way they wish, including making payments, buying crypto coins, and many others.
So, to make sure that you’re free from the other suspicious payment made under your name, it’s better to freeze your account first.
How To Protect Yourself from Identity Theft
And now, we’ll explain about how to protect yourself from this malicious act. There are various essential things you can do to keep yourself protected, such as:
1. Installing a VPN
People tend to browse the internet in their daily lives. And when connected to the internet, although you’re only simply browsing the search engine, the risks of identify theft are still there. As a proactive measure, you can install a VPN.
This VPN will work by protection you from the cybersecurity risks via channelling your connection using its servers that are places on various locations. Yes, you can also switch locations using VPN. If you want to try, use some cheap VPN for tests and protect your personal files. By using a VPN, your browsing experience will be much safer and more comfortable.
2. Never Use Simple Passwords
Another thing you can do is managing your passwords. Keep them complex, and make sure that you have different password for each account. We know that it’s not that simple to have so many passwords for one person, and that’s why we’d recommend using a password manager that can help you to get the job done.
By using the manager, you can compile all your passwords into one safe location that’s only accessible through a master key. With it, you can keep the complex passwords more safely.
3. Never Share Your Personal Information to the Public
Your personal information is really valuable, and that’s why you need to keep it to yourself. Never share this vital info to others, especially in public places like social media, forums, and others.