Identity Theft

Identity Theft
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Identity Theft
Introduction
Identify theft is a broad term that means that someone steals a person's identity, which is personal information of any kind and uses it without permission. There are multiple forms of identity theft (Solove & Schwartz, 2020). If a person's identity is stolen, anyone with access to that information can extract critical data using the credentials. For example, if someone steals the credit card number, he can make payments through the card and use it as his own.
Identity theft is a growing crime that affects a person's personal life and might put them in a financial and mental crisis. It is essential to prevent it from happening so that sensitive information can be safe without any interference.
How Does Identity Theft Happen
There are several different ways through which people can steal a person's identity. Some of the widely observed forms unfold as follows:
Data Breaches
A data breach occurs when someone accesses a person's or an organization's data without their permission (Fowler, n.d.). A company might lose their sensitive information like social security numbers and credit card numbers of their clients through a data breach. Because people have many accounts in different businesses and organizations, a data breach is inevitable. However, specific steps might minimize the risk of identity theft.
Unsecure Browsing
Unsecure browsing might also lead to identity theft. If a person shares essential information on shady and unsecured websites, the scammers can extract the data and use it as their own.
Credit Card Theft
This is the most common type of identity theft. If someone gets access to an individual's credit card information, he might use it to make online purchases and empty the bank account.
Phishing and Spam Attacks
A few scammers use email and instant messages and different electronic correspondence types to take users' critical data (Donaldson et al., 2018). The message regularly resembles it from a trustworthy source and requests people to surrender at least one sort from data.
For instance, a counterfeit email made to seem as though it is from the bank may incorporate a link that guides the person to a fake website that looks like the one it shows. Once there, the site may ask for a username and secret word or to include Mastercard data or the Social Security number. In the case of something that appears to be dubious, it very well may be an endeavor at data fraud.
How to Protect Yourself from Identity Theft
There are several ways through which one can protect themselves from identity theft. An individual must be extra careful while moving sensitive information to minimize someone's risk of stealing personal information.
It is important to empty the letterbox rapidly, lock it or get a P.O. Box, so scammers do not get an opportunity to grab credit car...