There is a growing concern in Australia that the threat of cybercrime is not just increasing but exploding like crazy at a rapid rate. Recent data from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) shows that from January to September of this year, Australians lost more than $47 million per month, as reported by ABC television.
Compared to the same period a year ago, the losses were 90 percent higher than they had been. The actual losses that cyber criminals perpetrate are likely to be quite large since only 13 percent of victims report losing their money to cyber crimes.
Cybercrime rates surged before the multiple high-profile data breaches that were reported by large corporations in recent months, which occurred before the recent spike in cybercrime. Cybercriminals exploited the lapses in security to steal the details of most Australians and this provided them with the opportunity to commit fraud or to steal their identity. Several reports have already leaked to the media regarding losses caused by those breaches as a consequence of the security breaches. For the nation, this will be a costly time as far as its infrastructure is concerned.
Identity Theft Prevention: What Can Individuals Do?
Almost no one in modern society can avoid using the Internet to store data online. There are many services provided over the Internet, and even if you do not enter the data directly yourself, banks, insurers, government agencies, and companies with whom you interact daily will store the data of your accounts, including your financial information, in cloud services, even if you do not directly input the information. A breach could pose a threat to your data without you knowing anything about it or doing anything to expose it to risk.
Whenever a data breach occurs, the business is legally obligated to inform its customers, so when your data has been compromised, you will know about it (unfortunately, the word "when" does not mean "if"). However, there is an additional proactive measure that you can take if you want to protect your own identity from theft.
The sooner you act on a data breach, the less damage it will cause to your business. There are a variety of things that you can do to make sure that a breach does not compromise your data if it occurs. However, you may not be able to prevent it.
1) Be on the lookout for suspicious activity: The common problem when it comes to a breach of a person’s data is that they are not able to take action on it right away. This is because it is not enough. This information will be needed for them to complete their investigation, so they will seek ways to find it. It is a wise idea to be wary if you receive phone calls or emails from sources that you do not know. In addition, you need to be careful if you receive messages that ask you to confirm account details or if your password has been changed. It is clear that if a cybercriminal is looking for more data about you and seeking to obtain it, then they may have some available.
2) Ensure that you carefully review your account and credit card statements: In the event of any unusual purchases or purchases where you think you may have simply forgotten about the purchase, it would be a wise idea to flag them immediately, regardless of how small they are.
3) If there has been any change in details: You should always check the date and who authorized any changes to any correspondence you have received from the company or service if you notice some details have changed.
4) Consult an Identity Restoration Specialist to see if you need help: To gain a better understanding of the most effective approach in practice, as well as how to move forward, consulting with a specialist can be helpful.
In addition, you can take some steps to completely resecure your data right away. If cybercriminals do manage to compromise the system that you're on, then you can be sure that the rest of the information that they need is much more difficult to get, and as a result, it will be more difficult for them to commit identity fraud against you.
1) Ensure all your passwords are changed and enable two-factor authentication (2FA): It is recommended that you get a dedicated token device or a second phone that you can utilize solely for that purpose. This is in addition to a dedicated token device, to use with 2FA. A strategy called “hijacking phones” has become part of cyber criminal strategies to circumvent your 2-factor authentication measures by convincing your phone company to transfer your number to their device. Once they have done this, any of these methods can be used to circumvent your 2FA measures. There is an easy way to find the telephone number of most people online. The amount of protection against phishing attempts can be increased by having a secure number that does not have any public information about it for 2FA.
2) Make sure that personal information available on social media is removed as far as possible: A birthday message on your Facebook wall or a tweet on your Twitter feed might be something you look forward to. It is, however, one of the most common pieces of information used to verify your identity, which is your date of birth. There are several reasons why this is so significant since access to your accounts is dependent on it.
3) You may want to consider freezing your credit rating as a precaution: If you notice any suspicious activity on your credit report, the credit ratings on your credit report should be frozen.
Despite strategies and technologies designed to prevent security breaches, companies cannot be guaranteed to remain secure at all times. In fact, it is much more likely that they have already been compromised without even realizing it in the first place. A company can begin protecting and monitoring sensitive information once the inevitability of a breach is accepted. They begin accepting the necessity of minimizing the risk that could be associated with it.