Why Having a Credit Monitoring Service Shouldn't Be a Reason to Be Careless with Your Passwords
You have subscribed to a credit monitoring service, and now you feel invincible. Not so fast. The service provided to you by your bank, a credit bureau or a company managing personal finances might help you to some extent, but it does not automatically make you untouchable, and you could still suffer identity theft conducted by schemers and remote attackers. If you think you can become more lax with your virtual security and passwords, you have been mistaken. Ultimately, your virtual identity is in your hands, and you are the one who needs to take care of it. While using tools that can help you keep everything in line can be very beneficial and helpful, you need to take care of certain things yourself. It is most important that you take measures that would ensure that you do not become a victim of identity theft in the first place.
How do credit monitoring services work?
If you believe that the credit monitoring service you have paid money for will ensure that you avoid identity theft completely, you’ve got the wrong idea. Such services are not always able to recognize when someone is impersonating someone else. That means that if a hacker obtains your login information, they can do some real damage without anyone stopping them in time. These services are also limited when it comes to identifying fraud. Some of them scan the web to check for information leaks, and others only check credit reports. If anything suspicious is discovered – for example, if a new credit inquiry is made – customers are notified so that they themselves could investigate the incident further. A credit monitoring service can also be used to track credit scores, which customers might be interested in if they are planning to rent or buy a new home or are looking for a better insurance deal.
Credit monitoring services are not free. On average, a customer using these services will have to pay around $10-15 every month. This sum might seem miniscule to some, but it all adds up in the end, and if the services turn out to be not as beneficial, one needs to ask themselves if they are worth it. Although credit monitoring can help customers spot suspicious activity faster, this service cannot prevent fraud or stop cyber criminals from performing identity theft. On top of that, companies offering the service experience data breaches as well. You probably are familiar with the data breach that affected Equifax and, in turn, over 145 million US citizens who trusted the company. Although the company offered free monitoring services to its customers, as well as such tools as LOCK & ALERT, which allows locking credit reports to add protection against identity theft, after the incident, there is no doubt that this blunder has cost its reputation. This has also forced millions of customers all over the world to reconsider paying for monitoring services altogether.
Some believe that consumers are perfectly capable of monitoring their credit themselves. Online services that offer free monitoring exist. Consumers can also review their credit files periodically to check for any changes or unwarranted activity, and if you live in the US, you are entitled by law to get free reports from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion every single year. On top of that, banks that are managing your credit cards are already doing a great deal of monitoring on your behalf, and they can call you to discuss suspicious activity, as well as take action to decline transactions if they are made abroad or even outside your home state. At the end of the day, whether or not you are doing or using anything to monitor your credit, you need to take action to ensure that your virtual identity is protected, as that is the only way to prevent identity theft.
The importance of strong passwords, vigilance, and common sense
If after weighing all pros and cons you decide that using a credit monitoring service is what you want to do, you need to make sure you do your part as well. First, you want to make sure that all of your passwords are strong. If you reuse passwords or create ones that are easy-to-guess, cyber attackers can perform identity theft using brute-force attacks, and no monitoring system will be able to help you in that case. If it is impossible for you to create strong and memorable passwords, you should consider employing a password manager with an integrated password generator, like the one offered by Cyclonis. When you create strong passwords, you greatly minimize the chances of cyber criminals taking advantage of you.
It is also imperative that you stay vigilant and use common sense. Schemers are often using misleading spam emails to trick gullible and careless users. For example, they could create an email address that looks similar to the one that sends you newsletters from Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, or your personal bank, and then use it to send misleading phishing messages. These could include malicious links and attachments representing malware (e.g., keyloggers that could record your passwords silently) or deceptive online forms that could be used to extract your full name, login information, and similar details. Needless to say, if hackers obtain this kind of information, they could gain access to your banking accounts, credit reports, and other sensitive data.
Online scams, fake surveys, phishing emails, corrupted pop-ups, and malware could all be used by cyber criminals to perform identity theft, and if you do not take preventative steps, it is highly unlikely that the credit monitoring service you are using will be worth the monthly pay. That being said, if you take care of your own virtual security, and you also employ a trustworthy monitoring tool, the chances of you experiencing identity theft become much smaller. Isn’t that your goal?
