Honesty Online Can Increase Identity Theft Risk

I'm sure you've heard it before, even from me, "Be careful what you divulge online." Whether you're conversing on a niche forum, frequenting your favorite chat room, writing personal blog posts, or maintaining your MySpace page, you need to be careful how honest you are with your personal information. Even sharing your birth date, which seems fairly innocent, can come back to haunt you if the information falls into the wrong hands. Remember that fraudsters don't need much information to make you an identity theft victim. Why make ID theft any easier than it already is?

Yes, you've heard all of this before I'm sure. However, what about your online banking security? Obviously, you don't want to have a password that is easy to guess, but you also have your bank's security questions to answer in case you forget your password. Do you answer those questions honestly? It might help if the bank's security questions couldn't be answered by information that is public record or easily guessed, but they do want you to be able to answer them if you forget your password. However, this PC World blog points out just how easy it can be to access someone else's online banking information. Your father's middle name and the city where you were born can be found fairly easily by anyone willing to do a bit of footwork. So you may not want to answer those questions honestly. It may come back to bite you in the form of identity theft. You may not want to give your pet's name when asked for it. You may not want to supply a "name" at all, or if you do, include some numbers or other characters in the mix. If your cat's name is Fred, don't simply type in "Fred." Try something like "2f7r1e!d&" or something more complex than simply a name. Yeah, it's obnoxious but you get the point.

There are times when you have to be honest online (like with online purchases, that is if you actually want to receive what you are ordering), but other times your honesty can hurt you. You can avoid being an identity theft victim by knowing what to hide and what to tell.