Note: No, I have not had my identity stolen, so I do not know the hardships if it may happen. I am not saying that you can be worry free when it comes to your identity, but you don’t need to lose sleep every night about it, if you use common sense when it comes to who you are giving your ID, then everything should be just fine.
Lately there has been a commercial floating around the TV airwaves asking you a simple question, “Do you know where your identity is?” Well, do you?
Every time you order a package on line, over the phone, or anywhere, your information can be passed down the line and someone will probably remember it somewhere in that line. It’s a scary scenario, that’s for sure, but it isn’t something that you should completely dwell on forever, and you shouldn’t lose too much sleep over it.
Your identity, for the most part, is safe. Sure there are those assholes out on the web who make it their goal to screw you over and take every penny you got, well your bank should already have some preventative measures for those type of situations, as do the companies that you purchased the product from, as do your credit card companies, and so on.
You can do yourself one better by purchasing an “identity protection” program by certain companies, but for the most part I say just don’t do anything too stupid by going around telling people your social security number, and you should be pretty safe.
However, if you know you have a virus, or pop ups are coming out of nowhere, or something just isn’t right about your computer, you should call a computer guru RIGHT AWAY! There are reasons for this RIGHT AWAY, ASAP style of capitalization. And by that, I mean that the company hasn’t stolen your SSN yet, but they might be doing it the very next time you type it in.
There are programs that can be installed into your computer without you even knowing it, and the program I am going to be centering around is called a keylogger. Keyloggers do just about exact what their name implies, they log keys. I mean like the keys that I am using to type this right now, or the keys that you might be using to type in a password to your email, message board, or even bank account. These logs are then generated and automatically emailed to a thieves email account, and sadly there is almost no way to trace where they are being sent to.
So this is why, the first time you see something wrong with your computer you should take care of it as soon as possible. You don’t want your identity to be stolen and sent out so all of Times Square knows who you are!
