3 Steps to Protect Your Identity from the Dark Web

You need to protect yourself from the Dark Web now before your private information is stolen and sold there.  

The Statistics Are Greater Than You Think

The internet is 90% full of your private information such as your name, social security number and birth date at various banks school and other accounts you have.   All of that is called personal identifiable information (“PII”) and it is valuable to thieves.  Once your PII gets hacked from the web, then you  risk  losing money, your identity and even your home as hackers are now filing fake deeds to your home in their names using your information. Although only 6% of the internet comprises the Dark Web, your security risks are great when 90% of the internet has your PII published all over the place.

The Dark Web is part of the internet that cannot be reached by Google or other search engines.  It  is used by the government for their own beneficial purposes, but it is also accessed by special software thugs use to hide their identity and location to commit crimes.  That includes selling your passwords, name, address and social security to identity thieves that were hacked from accounts you have with various companies or social media.   Those data breaches we hear so much about lately, such as hospital data breaches, are where these thieves get your information then list it on the dark web for sale.

It will take you weeks of your valuable time to call various agencies, credit bureaus and your banks to place stops on your accounts and change your passwords once you discover your information was stolen.

Steps to Protect Your Internet Identity

Here’s three simple steps to do before your private information is stolen, or to discover if it was stolen, to protect yourself:

1. 1.  If you have a Google account then go to https://myactivity.google.com/
   2. Under Dark Web report click Start monitoring
   3. Add any additional information then click Done.

Immediately  a report will be generated of any stolen information.  Click every listing and do what the instructions tell you to do to correct the breaches listed.

I suggest that you terminate any account  you have not used for the past few years by going to that account, delete your private information such as your name, birthdate and home address listed there  then terminate the account.  If the account will not let you delete your information, then change it to something like “John Jones” at “111 Smith St” .   The reason you should change your information in each account before you terminate it is because  that information may remain on the internet even after terminating the account.

Most important, start changing all of your passwords to  your internet accounts to something very strong and use two-factor identification for everything.

Doing this now will save you so much time later and keep you safe.