Identity Theft Threats and Free Credit Reports

It seems that every time I turn around I'm hearing about another huge identity theft crisis. I'd scoff if it were not such a serious problem -- and one which there does not seem to be any true security.

Microsoft just launched 117 lawsuits against unnamed defendants for "phishing". Phishing is when someone sends out emails as if they were from banks or other legitimate organizations -- asking for personal information.

Of course, you can protect your personal information through firewalls, virus software, not responding to email requests from anyone asking for your personal information (FYI -- no legitimate company will do this!), shredding personal documents, not ordering things online from companies who don't have a good reputation, not telling people your social security number or paying with a credit card over a cell phone. The problem is that even with all of the care in the world, we are still at risk.

Lexis-Nexus (one of the world's information leaders) was hacked and hundreds of thousands of people had their identity information stolen. A few months ago a laptop was stolen from a California university containing over 100,000 social security numbers. According to the FCC over 27 million Americans have fallen victim to identity theft.

So what do we do? Well, the only thing we can really do is to protect ourselves as best we can, and then keep track of our credit reports to see if anything suspicious comes up. You can now get a free copy of your credit report each year. (Actually you can get a free report from each of the credit reporting agencies, so you can space them out and get 3 each year.)

Get more information about your free credit report through the Federal Trade Commission site. This is a new law, so check out the FTC to find out when and where you can get your free report.