4 Ways to Stay Safe Financially

With a cybercrime report informing us of almost 1.2 billion usernames and passwords being stolen by a Russian group, it can be worrying to think that your information can be accessed so easily.

That said, here are 4 ways you can stay safe financially:

#1: Review bank statements regularly

It is important to do this because this type of ID theft has affected at least 15.3 million people. People who suffer from this type of theft tend to suffer more emotional distress than credit card owners. Always check your bank statements online literally every other day.

#2: Change username and passwords

Internet users in the United States don’t have more than 3 sets of credentials for the sites that they use. Using throwaway password can be fine for forums and blogs but it’s important to do much better. For this, make sure you have a password with eight characters forming a word that is not found in the dictionary.

#3: Shred your financial documents

Almost fifteen percent of adults in the United States store their financial information in unsecure locations. Throwing out your statements is hardly the way to keep your information secure either. For this reason, remember to shred your financial documents at all times.

#4: Review your credit reports and credit card statements

Even though almost 25 percent of people have fallen victim to credit card theft, they fail to review their credit card statements even lesser than their bank accounts. As for credit reports, most people have accepted that they haven’t bothered to check them even once – this is almost one-third of consumers.