Preventive Measures to Prevent Identity Theft
We have already talked about why and how identity theft occurs, now let's discuss how it can be prevented.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to provide a specific set of measures to prevent identity theft, so I will simply suggest a few recommendations that I know, and you can choose what suits you best.
Comprehensive Security
A banal yet fundamental piece of advice. You should study this course and set up the security of all your devices. Very often, data theft occurs through a compromised Wi-Fi router, phishing site, or through malicious software. We will teach you how to defend against these threats.
We are not alone in our opinion: recently, the FBI published its advice on protecting against identity theft. The main recommendations focus on attentiveness and ... caution when using public Wi-Fi.
Advice
Set up comprehensive security for all your devices.
Use Email Services with the Ability to Delete Data from the Recipient
You might be surprised, but such functionality exists in Gmail and Protonmail; you can delete sent emails and prevent copying and forwarding of data. In addition to the built-in functionality provided by developers, there are also third-party services like Criptext. In our course, we will teach you how to effectively protect the emails you send.
However, I would not overestimate these tools; with enough determination, they will not become an insurmountable barrier. Moreover, the recipient may insist on receiving documents with the ability to download them.
Advice
Use email (or messengers) with the ability to delete data from the recipient or limit their actions with it.
Sent by Email – Delete
Probably, there is hardly a reader of the course who has not once sent a photocopy of their documents and other valuable data by email; and there is hardly a reader who does not know that all sent documents are saved in the mailbox in the sent items folder; and sadly, there is hardly a reader who immediately deletes an email with valuable data from the sent folder.
Perhaps the reader believes that their email will never be hacked; likely, Hillary Clinton thought so too until her correspondence was published on the Wikileaks portal – and it cost her the presidential seat. The truth is that criminals have streamlined the hacking of email accounts and their checking for information that can be monetized.