Have you been a victim of identity theft, or are you afraid to become one? Maybe it’s because you spend majority of your life online. You shop, bank, watch movies, listen to music, doing most everything online. It is said that 50% of identity theft happens via the internet and it’s done mostly thru phishing e-mails scams, but there are a lot of ways you can get phishing protection. You can download free software if you don’t trust your browsers. But many of the latest browsers come with their own phishing protection and they are aware of the threat and come up with solutions to help protect their consumers.

However should you be victimized. Here are 3 steps to point you in the right direction.

1.    You can call any of the three major credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax or TransUnion. Do this so they can flag your credit documents, this way creditors are aware of your situation and any credit applied under your name will have to be verified. You can also work with them to work out which entries on your credit files are fraudulent and let creditors know that those entries are disputed. This will help you minimize damage to your credit.

2.    Call local authorities. File a police report and supply all necessary documents and information including disputed accounts. This will help prove you are a victim of identity theft.

3.    And lastly call the FTC, they will not investigate your case but they will help point you in the right direction and you can file a fraud affidavit with them as well.

Now, are you done yet? Of course not, now that you let the authorities know about your situation and you’re on your way to having everything fixed. Now is not the time to sit. You should take steps to ensure that this will not happen again. First ensure that your personal information is safe and secure, tear up any documents you don’t need and throw them in separate trash bins.

Since you do spend time online ensure that your computer has the latest version of your anti-virus software, malware protection programs and that your firewall is turned on. By now you are aware of the dangers of phishing, don’t be a victim of phishing scams, protect yourself and ensure that your browser’s phishing protection is activated or if you’re not sure it may be a good idea to invest in a separate phishing protection software.

A well known computer identity theft of today is called phishing or phishing scam, true to hacker approach, phishing means, well, as it sounds like fishing, by baiting individuals to divulge personal information using two baits. The first one would be an e-mail asking you to divulge your personal data in an e-mail reply and the other one will be a bogus website that appears to be legitimate and looks exactly like the original site, that anyone can easily be fooled to believe that it is the original site.

Phishing Scam – How Does It Work?

Usually the target will receive an e-mail that seems to come from a legitimate company that you transact business with. Now you have to remember that this may look like a legitimate e-mail coming from the company. There are two ways the identity thief can con you into giving the information he needs.

One is that the e-mail will tell you that your account has been compromised or that you’re account will be closed if you do not reply, so it will ask you to reply to the e-mail with your personal information, and you, if you don’t know any better, will actually reply and send your personal information to the thief, without really realizing what you did.

The other way phishing scam works is still using e-mail, you maybe asked to click on a link that will direct you to a website, and this website will look exactly like the original site. The e-mail will ask you to visit that bogus website and confirm your account information and since the fake website looks exactly like the original one, you will innocently type in your personal details, bank account number, passwords and PIN numbers and once you’ve done this, you become the instant victim of identity theft.

When They Ran Out of Bat

Internet identity theft can work even without bait. When phishers do this, it’s called pharming. Pharming is a bit more technical than phishing since it involves installing malicious code in your computer or your network server.

The more technical way a pharmer can commit identity theft is by sending out an e-mail that can affect you even if you don’t open the attachment, this works simply by opening the e-mail, a virus will install itself on your pc, more often than not, without your knowledge. And with this malware installed, trying to visit a legitimate site will just direct you to the bogus one.