Identity Security Makes Sense

Keeping Your Identity Secure

Keeping your Identity secure is a part of the considerations of Data Privacy, which covers a lot of area’s. In this Fact Sheet I will cover some principles of Data Privacy and some things to do keep your data and your Identity secure.

What is Data Privacy?

Data Privacy is a term used in information security dealing with the handling of data that is concerned with consent, notice, sensitivity and regulatory concerns. From a corporate perspective, data privacy is taken very seriously, and most organizations fall under regulatory requirements to keep your data secure. However, this is not always the case, and this is called a Data Breach.

What is a Data Breach?

Data Breach is when a company insecurely stores data that can be accessed from the internet and that data ends up being shared across the web which can be used for nefarious purposes.

How do I make sure that my Data is secure?

There are some steps that you can take to make sure your data stays secure even in the event that your data is breached.

• If you know that a service you used has had a data breach, you might change the password for the accounts that you use for that service. For example, if Facebook has a Data Breach, change the password for your Facebook account, as well as the email you use for that account.
• If you do not know if your Data has been breached, you can use web based tools to help you determine if you have have been:
  • https://haveibeenpwned.com/ allows you to search whether or not an email account you use is a part of any data breaches that have been uncovered, or potentially still unknown. Cybersecurity professionals regularly scan for these kinds of breaches on the Dark Web and other public websites.
  • If you have found your email accounts to be exposed in a Data Breach, you should change the passwords for those email accounts.

Other services that you can use to secure your Data and Identity?

• Costco offers a paid service that will monitor your Identity by coordinating with the big 3 credit bureaus, by looking for suspicious activity related to credit usages such as credit cards opened in your name. To my knowledge that also insure you for losses you might take in the event that your identity is stolen and is used to make large purchases or transfer money from your account.  Costco’s Identity Theft Product
• The best way to make sure that your identity isn’t used for nefarious purposes to make sure you freeze your credit and only unfreeze it if you need to use your credit, such as for buying a car, applying for a loan or credit card.

John Baughman will be happy to answer any questions that you might have if you will post them in the comment section below.

Or, you can email John: JohnBaughman@iamtheway.org