While there is currently no available guarantee that you will never be the victim of identity theft there are methods you can take to both reduce the probability and make you aware of it when it happens. An identity theft shield can be placed on your accounts to notify you of questionable activities.
Unless you review your credit reports from all three of major reporting agencies on a regular basis, it could be months before you learn about an incidence of identity theft. A person, with enough of your personal information, could change your mailing address when they open new charge accounts and you would never receive any of the bills that the thief is not paying. An identity theft shield would notify you of any information reported to the credit agency, including the change of address.
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While you may not need to physically chain up your computer to protect yourself from identity theft, the fight against identity theft is becoming stronger, while, at the same time, the rate of such crimes is also increasing. A new type of internet piracy has surfaced in the form of phishing, which means internet pirates are fishing for personal information such as account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers as well as other bits of confidential information. In the fight against identity theft, one must ensure not to provide personal information when replying to unsolicited requests, and not provide passwords over the phone or when replying to unsolicited internet requests. In the fight against identity theft, one should also take care not to click links contained in emails that are of dubious nature as it could contain a virus that would contaminate your computer.
There are few things worse in life than waking up one day to find that your identity is not just your own, in fact, someone else has decided they want to be you as well. They have stolen your identity and intend to make the most of it, to your own detriment. The best defense against identity theft is to know what you can do to prevent it in the first place. You are never really, out of the woods, but you can take steps that will help you prevent and catch identity theft, if it were to occur.
Millions of Americans have their identity stolen and this is only part of the crime. These same Americans are victimized through numerous means of financial fraud. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) states that over 27 million citizens of this country were victims of identity theft in the last 5 years. According to the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), the number of victims will increase by 500,000-700,000 each year. Identity theft has increased by 79% from the year 2002 to 2003.
Unlike the locked up laptop on the right, it is harder to prevent your email identity from being stolen. Email identity theft involves the fraudulent use of your email address for phishing or spamming. The usual victim of email identity theft is a commercial enterprise. Email identity theft is perpetrated for two purposes - to convince others that they are legitimate firms that have legitimate reasons for asking for people's financial information such as bank access, credit card numbers and so forth. This is phishing. 
There are many ways in which identity theft can be stolen from a person and carried out. Your credit cards can be used, your social security number could be used to get a job, your bank account and credit record could be used for loans and mortgages and so on. One type of identity theft you may not have thought about is medical identity theft. There is where someone uses your name in relation to medical activities. 
Internet identity theft is a concern, or should be a concern for anyone who surfs the Internet or transacts business online. As more people become comfortable shopping online, the opportunity for internet identity theft increases. Every block that is established to protect a person’s identity, another breach is made enabling a dishonest person to steal their identity. 
Perhaps one of the oldest , and most dangerous forms of identity fraud is social security identity theft. When someone has your social security number, they, in the minds of most financial organizations, become you. This is why it is so important to protect your social security number and be very careful whom you give it to. Learn more about protecting yourself from social security identity theft. Social security identity theft occurs when a criminal or scammer gets a hold of your social security number. They then use it to apply for loans, get a visa or passport, or much more. The way someone usually finds out they have been a victim of social security identity theft is long after the theft of their personal information has occurred. They might start receiving calls from unknown creditors demanding payment for outrageously high credit card bills or other loans. 
