Credit card thefts on the rise suggests a recent survey

Stop reveling in your new purchase of a Smartphone, take it easy! Your data on your smartphone is not exactly safe! It could get stolen, especially the financial info like your credit and debit card information. Read on the new item below and get the facts straight. It is time you get that encryption software installed on your laptop!

What does the recent survey say?

According to the latest report from Javelin Strategy & Research 7.7 million Americans have been hit with credit and debit card fraud in 2011 alone.

What is the reason for this increase? The answer: Credit card thefts are back in vogue.

“There’s been a rebound. … ID thieves have bounced back,” said Javelin President James Van Dyke. This is about 2.2 million more than in the previous year.

Analyst Avivah Litan says “Our data says the same thing (as the Javelin data). It is worth noting that increases in fraud rates are even more pronounced on the small business and corporate side, which Javelin didn’t survey.”

A broad definition of identity theft:  any time a transaction occurs using a victim’s name or account information without authorization.

An example of ID theft

The survey further adds- There were some very high-profile thefts, such as the breaches on Sony Corp’s PlayStation network in April. A person whose personal information is stolen in a data breach is 9.5 times more likely to become a victim of identity fraud.

The situation is not as bleak as it looks. There is still hope. Consumers can protect themselves against identity fraud by taking the appropriate steps to safeguard their personal information.

Sure fire ways to protect from identity/credit card fraud:

– Monitor your accounts — Consumers can monitor accounts and catch fraudulent activity even faster with available electronic resources. Fraudulent activity can be monitored through electronic means like online banking, mobile banking and ATMs.

– Time to get rid of paper – Get your bank and credit card statements delivered online, there’s always a chance of your hard copy getting stolen.

– Set up a fraud alert.

– Avoid sharing personal information on social media sites.

The connection between social media and identity fraud

According to the survey there is a connection between active use of social networks and ID theft. More than 10 percent of LinkedIn users say they were a victim of identity theft (10.1 percent), while 7 percent of Google+ users and 6.3 percent of Twitter users admitted to being victims of ID theft –. Facebook users were at 5.7 percent just above the national average of 4.9 percent.

Social networking site users are more than often careless with their data: 45 percent disclose their birth date and year; 63 percent their high school; 18 percent their phone number; and 12 percent their pet’s name.

Data security with Alertsec

Alertsec is here to take care of our security issues especially for anyone working with PCs. Alertsec Xpress is the service that automatically protects ALL information you store on your PC. The fact that we now buy more laptops than desktops shows that the information we all store is increasingly more vulnerable to be exposed. It is a much higher risk to lose a laptop than a desktop computer.

Encryption is the only secure method for complete protection of data stored on your hard disk. Today laptops are overtaking desktop PCs as the major source of computing and media storage, laptops frequently store an organization’s most valuable information. Thus laptop encryption is becoming more and more important.

Alertsec Xpress offers full disk encryption and is therefore superior to other encryption methods when comparing security, performance, robustness and ease-of-use for both administrators and users.