Written by Info Expert on July 21, 2010 | Posted in Fraud and Identity Protection

The Internet has forced people to really think about security and the things they need to protect. It is now too easy to distribute information quickly without thinking. There are certain steps you should take to maintain and secure your personal identity as well as your business information.

Shred personal and business documents

People are savvy when trying to obtain information from a person or business. If you receive credit card statements or mortgage statements regularly you should buy a microcut shredder to shred all of your statements to help prevent people sifting through your trash trying to get your credit card account information even your bank account information. If you are business that receives prints and throws out allot of payroll or vendor statements you should purchase a cardboard shredder to shred your paper. Cardboard shredders allow you to shred a larger bundle of documents at one time

Protect your Social Security Number

As with finances most sites should only accept your SSN number and personal data under a secure site. You should never reply to an email or follow a link to a website and enter your personal information. If you believe an email requesting information to be legit you should manually type the banks or stores link into your web browser and log into the site using this method.  If missing information is required for an application the site will often give you a pop up requesting information from you.

Protect your banking account information

You should never give your banking information online unless you initiated the contact through a secure website. A secure website needs to always contain https in the address bar when entering sensitive information about yourself or business. If you are filling out an application online without this security protocol then you should stop filling out the form and either physically apply at the location or contact their help desk support to alert them they are requesting information on their website without using a security protocol

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