Robert Siciliano explains how to recover from identity theft: document everything and push creditors relentlessly to close fraudulent accounts. For kids, parents need to match their digital literacy, monitor devices and apps, and use monitoring software. Never share names, birthdates, or locations on social media.
Hi, I'm Robert Siciliano, McAfee's online security expert.
If you've been affected by identity theft, the way to fix it really boils down to persistence. That means whatever creditor has opened up new accounts under your name, you have to contact them and go through the process that they require to fill out documentation, lick stamps, make phone calls, send emails, and to keep a paper trail because this could take an hour It could take hours or it could take hundreds of hours. Just make sure you're persistent and you document all transactions and do it until it's done. The way to protect kids online, first and foremost, is parents need to be skilled in the World Wide Web. It's not enough for your kids to know more about the web than you do. You have to be as digitally savvy as your children are. That means paying attention to all the different places they go on the web, understanding the different devices they have and how they use them. And also knowing who they're communicating with online. One of the best things you can do is install some type of a monitoring software that allows you and your child to actively participate in their web experience and set certain controls to protect them from predators. When it comes to social media, I'm a firm believer in, um, less is better. That you want to keep things relatively professional. That once you start posting kids' names, pets' names, birthdates, you're basically giving away a lot of your information regarding passwords, also your locations. You're telling the bad guy where you are and sometimes where you aren't, which could be your home, which allows them to break into it while you're gone. So just really limit your information. Don't spill your guts on social media all day every day, because that really can invite trouble.
And then if you want to go ahead and plug a website or anything, you can do it now.
For more information, you can check out my book, 99 Things You Wish You Knew Before Your Identity Was Stolen, and check us out at McAfee.com.
