Today, anyone can find your information with a few clicks of the button.
With the proliferation of social media and online services, people are oversharing personal information. Identity theft can be financially devastating and damaging to relationships. Learning how to protect your identity online can help prevent the risk factors for identity theft.
Beware! Cybercriminals are now using deep fakes to trick and steal, says a news report by the Verge. A CEO of a major company was tricked into sending $220,000 to a supplier who impersonated his boss with a deep fake. Deep fakes are made by training large data sets using someone’s personally identifiable information.
Protecting your online identity helps you safeguard your data from such cyber criminals. But how do you achieve the ultimate security level? Let’s find out the answer together.
What Is Your Personal Identity Online?
Learning the definition of a digital identity and its importance is crucial to preventing identity theft.
Your digital identity represents all your personally identifiable information. This is all the data that makes you who you are online.
Personal identity comprises sensitive and non-sensitive personally identifiable information.
Non-sensitive personally identifiable information includes:
- Religion
- Race
- Date of birth
- Zip code
- Gender
- Place of birth
Sensitive personally identifiable information includes:
- Financial information
- Credit card information
- Medical records
- Full name
- Social Security Number (SSN)
- Passport information
- Mailing address
- Driver’s license
Why Identity Security Is Crucial Today
Today, every online business and social media platform asks for your personally identifiable information. How we use, provide, or store this information online can make it vulnerable to actions by malicious people.
Failure to protect your personal information online could result in financial loss. If a business fails to take proper measures to protect customers’ data, their loss or theft could lead to lawsuits and reputational damage.
Thus, individuals and businesses should stay on top of trends that pertain to cybersecurity and identity theft.
Let’s take a look at a few critical reasons why protecting your online identity is vital.
If you leave your information unguarded, someone else might gain access to it. They might use this personal information and pretend to be you or try to steal from your company or friends without breaking a sweat. They may also commit all kinds of crimes, posing as you.
According to US News and World Report, 73% of survey respondents experienced identity theft in 2023.
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Safeguard your financial data
If your passwords or credit card information falls into the wrong hands, they may use that to make purchases, transfers, and withdrawals. This may plunge you into huge debts that take years to recover.
You cannot afford to shilly-shally around personal identity protection online.
Most residential burglars attack people they know personally or from online interactions. If you advertise your home address, workplace, and other personal data to everyone, someone may piece this information together and find a way to sneak in and steal when you are away at work.
Similarly, don’t post information about your vacation. You are essentially letting burglars know the best time to break into your home.
What comes up after a background check by an employer depends on how well you protected your information online. If someone stole your personal identity and committed crimes, this could ruin your employability.
That’s how the reputational damage could also disqualify you from professional awards or the opportunity to run for office.
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Avoid fines and penalties
This mainly applies to business leaders and entrepreneurs. The moment someone uses your identity to defraud partners, customers, and suppliers in your name, it’s game over.
You will have lawsuits and PR nightmares, and sponsors will start pulling out. You will lose trust and go under.
Whether you are running an Etsy shop or operating a mega website for your company online, today, many laws require total compliance.
Take the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for instance. This law requires you to protect personal data and promptly prevent and report data breaches. Failure to comply can lead to substantial fines and penalties.
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Stay safe from malicious advertisements
If your data is exposed, malicious businesses might start to track you. They may trick you into clicking links or sites that further steal sensitive data, leading to new threats.
Deep fakes are one of the recent threats, but as AI takes over, more sinister doors could be opened.
5 Proven Techniques To Protect Your Identity Online
1. Use multiple unique passwords
One of the best methods to protect your identity online is securing your accounts with strong passwords. Unfortunately, many people are tempted to use their birthdays or their dog’s name for passwords. Even though these are easy to remember, they are also easy to hack.
On the same note, don’t use a single password for all your accounts. Use unique passwords for all your apps, websites, and online platforms.
2. Be careful on social media
Social media, by its very nature, makes it difficult to maintain personal data security. There is so much sharing and stalking happening on these platforms at any given moment. There is a risk of spam, fake accounts, and the spread of malware and social engineering scams.
Watch your step. To protect your online reputation, don’t put too much personal information on your social media. Don’t befriend people you don’t know, and don’t click on suspicious links. Implementing robust identity verification measures can further safeguard your digital presence by ensuring only authorized access to your sensitive data.
3. Watch out for suspicious emails
Phishing emails are designed to look like authentic emails from the real people you know. This is the epitome of impersonation. What happens afterward, usually, is you unknowingly hand over your personal data, send money, or authorize malfeasance.
Watch out for email messages that start with a generic greeting or from addresses that don’t seem familiar or authentic. Be wary if these messages request you to click suspicious links or provide personal information.
If you’re unsure whether an email is legitimate, the safest choice is to call the individual. If it’s a company, find their website and contact customer care.
4. Do not use public networks
Another vital online reputation protection strategy is this: do not log into public wifi at the coffee shop or pack. Public networks are open connections, meaning malicious actors can obtain your data by hijacking your device’s communication to the internet.
This is the infamous man-in-the-middle tactic.
5. Employ the right tools
The best identity protection tools can help you stay safe from malware, malvertising, and phishing. Although these tools aren’t 100% efficient, they raise the profile of your online safety.
It’s best if you use the following tools in combination with other strategies, such as multiple strong passwords, for maximum online reputation protection.
The Best Tools To Protect Your Identity Online
1. IdentityForce: best for protection and recovery of stolen funds
Identity Force is one of the tools that offers comprehensive monitoring and protection of your online privacy. It is designed to send you alerts of suspicious activities that target your financial information.
Identity Force gives you access to a team of experts who can help you implement strategies to protect or recover stolen personal identity online. They also provide credit monitoring and may be able to get you a reimbursement for stolen funds.
Their fee starts from $17.99/month.
2. IDX Complete: best for password protection
IDX Complete has been contracted by the federal government for breach response on several instances. They have robust military-grade tools for defending against cybercriminals and tracking and recovering personal data.
Via their consumer plan, you can access tools that improve password protection and services that help you remove sensitive data from wherever it is online. They also provide credit monitoring.
IDX pricing starts from $8.00.
3. McAfee+ Ultimate: best for ransomware protection
McAfee is one of the oldest antivirus software in the history of the internet. Over the years, they have perfected the tool and added more intuitive, robust features for protecting your identity online.
McAfee offers dependable malware protection, but one of their recent feature addition, ransomware protection, can cover up to two people. This is our most recommended tool to implement against cyber extortion.
You might also like their credit monitoring service and the file shredder feature, which helps make your exposed data irretrievable across the internet.
The biggest drawback is that all plans are annual – you cannot pay monthly. Also, the ransomware coverage comes at a hefty price of $25k.
4. LifeLock: best value for money
LifeLock is an affordable identity theft protection tool equipped with the latest features for extensive cybersecurity protection.
LifeLock works well when paired with the Norton 360 cybersecurity suite. You get several layers of protection against existing new and sophisticated cyber threats.
Its features include malware protection, password protection, VPN, and antivirus. You also get credit monitoring and timely alerts (via email, phone, and SMS) in case of suspicious activity.
LifeLock’s fees start from $11.90 monthly.
5. Aura: best for protecting against ID thefts
Aura by Identity Guard is much like LikeLock. You get an antivirus, VPN, and a secure password manager in a single software.
One of the most advantageous features is spam protection for emails, SMS, and even phone calls. No other tool on our list offers this high level of protection offline. Nonetheless, their online protection is just as robust.
You will enjoy free data removal for exposed sensitive data and even get credit monitoring to protect your finances. Aura sends alerts when it detects suspicious activity, such as someone accessing your bank account.
Pricing starts from $15/month.
6. Incogni: best for removing your details from data brokers
Incogni is a subscription-based service that automatically removes users’ data from hundreds of data brokers’ databases. It follows data privacy laws and collaborates with consumer protection agencies to protect customers’ rights.
The key features of Incogni include the following:
- Removes your data from databases that collect, trade, sell, or publish it.
- Ensures that strangers cannot purchase your personal information on people’s search sites.
- Regularly resends opt-out requests to an expanding list of data brokers. To prevent your data from being sold on the market.
Subscription plans start from $6.49 per month.
7. Guardian Digital: best for cloud email security
Guardian Digital provides robust cloud email security solutions designed to protect your online identity from numerous threats. As cyber threats become more sophisticated, email security has become a pivotal component in defending against phishing, malware, ransomware, and other malicious tactics targeting personal and business information.
Guardian Digital EnGarde Cloud Email Security offers comprehensive protection, continuously stopping advanced threats and ensuring email integrity.
Conclusion
As you can see, there are many ways to protect your identity online. Thankfully, most of these strategies are within your control.
By using strong passwords and limiting what you share, you can avoid the risk of identity theft and protect your money and reputation. You can also implement specialized tools that help you automate protection as well as give you credit monitoring, antivirus, antimalware, and data removal in a single application.
Enjoy your safe and secure online experience!
