Should You be More Careful About Your Identity When Using the Internet

Since everything is becoming technologically controlled, from home appliances to our driver’s license, where we are given an identity number. Even our passports have a number which is uniquely just our number. Technology and the Internet have made our lives much easier. With everything easily accessible, from online shopping to online banking, everything is just one click away. And it is not just becoming easier for the buyers, but for the hackers as well.

Now we, being consumers, blindly trust the internet, and give in all the details needed to access a specific website. For instance, if you have to shop online, you give in your credit card details, without thinking about whether it is safe or not. And to be honest, I do too trust these websites when I have to shop online. It is supposed to be safe right? And it is not just about the credit card details. Hackers, somehow are becoming stronger day by day in stealing identities of other people, which they access by hacking major information databases, like that of Equifax.

What is Equifax and What Was the Data Breach That Took Place

Equifax is a company that analyzes the financial data they have recovered on you, which can be used as an analysis of your financial situations when expected to take a loan or so. Since it is a company that has financial information from many consumers, you cannot really expect anything to go wrong here. But it did happen. Back in the 2017’s, Equifax was hacked, which gave away a lot of valuable information to hackers, and made many consumers an easy target for identity theft.

How to Save Yourself From Identity Theft

As scary as it may sound, you can be an easy target for identity theft, especially when you have given your information on the internet, whether it is to websites like Equifax, or online shopping websites. However, there are a few steps that can be taken by you, as precautions, to save yourself from any kind of identity theft.

1. Accept the need for securing your private information. These days, people who use the internet do not realize how important it is to keep their information private. And because every other thing that they use online, requires a little to a lot of private information, which we, as users, don’t think twice before giving.
2. Re-evaluate why the website or the person you are talking to online has asked for a specific piece of information. You need to think thoroughly about ‘is this needed here’. Most of the times, users are of the view that, ‘oh it is just my address, doesn’t matter, let’s just add that here’. But seriously, your ‘Address’ is a very important detail which you cannot be giving out to people on the internet unless you are online shopping of course.

We are in an era of time, where we feel like the internet is a secure place. While, surely, it might be secure in many cases, but because we don’t question the authorities who are controlling our ‘online’ life, we won’t have much say in how our privacy is being evaded.