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Protecting Yourself Against Identity Theft
Safeguarding Personal Financial Information
If you’ve lost personal information or identification, or if it has been stolen from you, quickly taking certain steps can minimize the poten- tial for identity theft.
Financial accounts: Close accounts, like credit cards and bank accounts, immediately. Place passwords on new accounts when you open them. Avoid using your mother’s maiden name, your birth date, the last four digits of your Social Security number or your phone num- ber, or a series of consecutive numbers.
Social Security number: Call the toll-free fraud number of any of the three nationwide consumer reporting companies listed earlier in this section and place an initial fraud alert on your credit reports. An alert can help stop someone from opening new credit accounts in your name.
Driver’s license/other government issued identification: Contact the agency that issued the license or other identification document. Follow its procedures to cancel the document and to get a replacement. Ask the agency to flag your file so that no one else can get a license or any other identification document from them in your name.
Computer and Internet use: You may be careful about locking your doors and windows, and keeping your personal papers in a secure place. Depending on what you use your personal computer for, an identity thief may not need to set foot in your house to steal your personal information. You may store your Social Security number, financial records, tax returns, birth date, and bank account numbers on your computer. The following tips can help you keep your computer—and the personal information it stores—safe.
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Virus protection software . Never run a computer without some type of anti-virus software, and remember to update your soft- ware and patches for your operating system and other software programs regularly. These should be installed to protect against