While everyone knows about identity theft and the consequences, few people really understand how identity theft takes place. According to the experts there are basically four primary ways:
In this article, I would like to address the fourth method of identity theft in more detail — the interception of email, and how one can actually send secure email. (I address the other three in my article “how to protect yourself from identity theft”).
1. The most important thing to do is to create a personal policy for yourself that reminds you to never send anything via unsecured email that you wouldn’t want to read in the next morning’s newspaper! Whenever you need to share privileged data (social security numbers, account numbers, passwords) or other non-public information (private medical-related or educational information), always make sure to send through a secure email solution. [/slide]
2. Don’t allow organizations that you work with to send or share your privileged or non-public information by regular email. Emails exist on multiple computers and are copied to multiple servers before arriving at their destination, available to anyone who cares to look. Tell your accountant, lawyer, banker, doctor or any person that is sending you privileged data that you expect them to send it securely … It’s the law.
3. Use secure email services when sharing your sensitive information! There are many free or low-cost secure email products available on the internet… use them! If you choose a free product (just remember that you may not have future access to the email that you sent). The one thing to remember is just never send your privileged information (social security number for example) by regular email. You might as well just write your personal information on a postcard where anyone can see it.
4. If you do not have access to a secure email product, but you still need to send sensitive data, you can always request the recipient of the privileged data to send you a secure email that you can reply to through a secure portal. Virtually all secure email products allow you to reply to the original sender of the secure email through their own secure portal.
(Banks, credit unions, mortgage companies and many other organizations are required by law to have a secure email system if they store, transmit, or share privileged data. Go to the page on our website Email Compliance Information to review some of the laws requiring secure email.)
5. If you have to send a document or email that will contain privileged data and you do not have any other options, you can encrypt individual documents. For example, if you are using Microsoft Word or Excel, you can encrypt your document by selectin “Save As”, then ” Tools”, then “General Options” and then create a password. Then email the encrypted document and call the recipient of your email with the password to de-encrypt. Do not Email the password. This is a good option if you only need to send a sensitive document once in a blue moon, because it’s not a very user friendly process.
6. Never reply to an email from a financial institution or government agency requesting you to re-confirm your personal data! These institutions will never ask for your privileged data (social security number, account number, security questions, account numbers , or passwords) by traditional email. And never select a link provided in an email, or open an attachment within an email, that requests the same confirmation.
Even if an email looks authentic, it is most likely a source of fraudulent phishing (the process of sending professionally designed, contrived emails to an unsuspecting population, requesting that they divulge their (PII) “Personal Identifiable Information.”)
Also, you should forward any suspicious emails to the company’s fraud division. (Go to the company’s website and search for “fraud reporting.”)
If you have a question about the legitimacy of an email, call the institution directly (but not with the phone number listed in the suspected email … Find a phone number listed from a legitimate source).
Protect yourself from identity theft by doing the basics. The repercussions of not doing so could amount to significant monetary loss, and the long-term damage to credit scores and reports, not to mention the painstakingly arduous task of verifying your own identity and monetary spending … your choice.
Peter Schaub
NeoCertified – President & CEO
