Protect yourself from all Types of Identity Theft by Jim Rjindael

There is no magical way to protect yourself from all types of identity theft but one of the most important keys is knowledge and common sense. If you use any online service such as online banking, ebay, paypal or anything else that could be used to access your personal details then take great care on where you login to them.

Let me tell you a little story, a scenario if you like. There are thousands of ways in which identity thieves will target you. But of course they try to minimize effort and maximise their income at your expense. The easiest way an identity theft will make money is by stealing directly from you, that is accessing something like your bank, paypal or ebooker account.

So we have the target - your login details to your online bank account. How would the identity thief steal these details? Well one way the nasty guys try and steal passwords is to install a keylogger on your computer to steal your account name and password.

A keylogger is a nasty little piece of software that records every single keystroke typed into a computer. The idea is that an identity thief will attempt to get this software onto your computer to steal your details. But instead of trying to install via viruses and websites on your home computer and battling with your antivirus programs many take another route.

There are millions of computers in internet cafes, hotel lobbies, and libraries all over the world. For instance take the computers in 5 star hotel lobbies, how many people use these to check their bank accounts, paypal accounts or webmail on these? BY their very nature, people use them to quickly check such sites, even with the growth of blackberries and smartphones you'll always find them in use.

Identity Thieves target these computers to install keyloggers, many have inexperienced IT staff and little concept of IT security. They can steal thousands of account details. Believe me many have keyloggers or other software installed on them.

My advice - never, ever use such a public computer to access any secure or password protected site, you may just be handing them over to an identity thief, there's no one way to protect yourself but this is a very real type of identity theft.