home

If you find yourself in the horrible predicament of having your identity stolen there are a few immediate steps that you’ll need to take to ensure no further abuse of your personal data and finances can take place.  Over 10 million incidents of identity theft take place each year in the United States and this figure continues to grow each and every year.  This is due in part, to the internet and the increasingly clear use of technology as a way to financially communicate.  Most if not all of us have access to our bank account statements as well as our bills on the World Wide Web.  This has meant we are further exposed to hackers and thus having our accounts hacked.  With the increasing use of technology we don’t seem to have an increasing awareness of our personal data and information vulnerabilities.  This has meant we don’t take the appropriate steps to ensure the safety and privacy of our personal data.

The first step that you need to take in the event of identity theft is to contact local and federal law enforcement agencies.  Knowing what’s compromised is important but you may not know how much and sometimes, what of your personal information and data has been stolen.  You’ll need to check all our statements to ascertain how long the data has been used to make purchases or any other criminal activity.  I would immediately contact all financial institutions that you have dealings with and ask them to put a hold on the accounts.  Better yet, I would close down the accounts and open up new ones with new account numbers and relevant details.

I would then redirect all of my mail to a private and locked post office box.  This will ensure that if you mail has been the cause of the breach, that no further breach can take place.  I would also immediately contact the financial and credit bureaus that will be able to put a fraud alert on your accounts.  This will raise any further red flags if in the event the criminal activity associated with your data is ongoing.  By calling the bureaus you block the opportunity of the criminal to open any further credit card or similar type of accounts, restricting his trade if you like.  The next step on the list is to contact the Federal Trade Commission and report the incidence of identity theft.  Following that I would have my computer and any laptops checked over by a trusted professional who will be able to ascertain whether any information has been hacked.  I would then change of all my usernames and passwords to ensure the hacker didn’t have further access.  I would also contact a credit reporting agency to understand whether my credit rating has been affected.

Make sure you keep all the documents you have that highlight the fraudulent use of your data.  And of course, any evidence that may lead investigators in the direction of the culprit.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.