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7 Ways To Prevent Identity Theft By Securemac.com Identity theft can upend your life. It requires a tremendous amount of time and effort to undo the damage—and the aftereffects can be felt for months or even years. Even the largest companies experience data breaches, losing track of customer passwords and personal information that can then be used to commit identity theft. And smaller organizations, governments, and schools are increasingly under attack by cybercriminals as well. In short, we're all at risk. While you can't do much to improve your bank's cybersecurity posture, there are some simple steps you can take to protect yourself. If you want to prevent identity theft, here are 7 things that you can do. 1 - Check Your Passwords We talk about the importance of passwords a lot, but there's a good reason for that: When it comes to cybercrime, we're of ten our own worst enemy. Weak or reused passwords make it easy for criminals to gain access our accounts, make of f with our information, and from there, steal our identities. Tip: Create strong, unique passwords for each account or service that you own. Get a password manager like 1Password or iCloud Keychain in order to make it easier to remember all of those passwords. And remember, password managers can also be used to create ultra-strong passwords that use long, random strings of letters, numbers, and special characters—making them essentially uncrackable. Even if you're already following password best practices, per form a self- audit to see if one of your account s has been involved in a data breach. Checkup tools like haveibeenpwned or Chrome's Password Checkup ex tension can't protect you from undiscovered breaches, but they can let you know if one of your account s was caught up in a known breach (and thus if it 's time to change your password). Lastly, consider using two -factor authentication whenever possible —that way, if the unthinkable happens and someone get s their hands on your master password, they won't have immediate access to your account s. 2 - Secure Your Networks Strong, unique passwords are an excellent way to protect yourself from identity theft and other forms of cybercrime. But they're not a 'magic bullet' solution, because criminals don't always need your password in order to gather enough information about you to steal your identity. Tip: Practice good network security at home, locking down your Wi-Fi network with strong encryption protocols and giving it a name that doesn't provide any hints as to the type of router you're using or who you are. When you're in public places, don't use unsecured Wi-Fi networks or send sensitive data over a public connection. Even on password-protected public networks, consider using a VPN to add an extra layer of security by encrypting your network traffic.