National Identity Theft Prevention Month

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.—Attorney General Ashley Moody is issuing tips to help protect Floridians in recognition of National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month. The Federal Trade Commission received 1.4 million reports of identity theft last year, with more than 100,000 reports coming from Floridians. With hackers lurking online, it is important that Floridians take steps to protect personal and financial information while using the internet.

Attorney General Ashley Moody said, “We should always be vigilant against hackers and those looking to steal personal and financial information. In recognition of National Identity Theft Prevention and Awareness Month, I’m encouraging Floridians to take steps to protect themselves from identity thieves.”

To keep personal and financial information safe from identity thieves, Floridians should:

Order and closely review a free credit report from each national credit reporting agency once a year;

Abstain from emailing personal or financial information;

Browse and purchase items online using only a secure connection. Never use autofill feature when filling out online forms, unless it is on a trusted site;

Use anti-virus software, anti-spyware and a firewall;

Enable multi-factor authentication whenever possible;

Create strong passwords using a mixture of upper and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters. Never use the same password across multiple websites or apps;

Avoid oversharing on social networking sites; and

Refrain from giving solicitors personal or financial information over the phone, by email or pop-up message.

For more information on how to avoid identity thieves, check out Attorney General Moody’s Scams at a Glance: Identity Theft resource.

To access Scams at a Glance: Identity Theft in English, click here.

To access Scams at a Glance: Identity Theft in Spanish, click here.

If someone is a victim of identity theft, the following steps should be taken immediately:

Call the fraud departments of all three major credit bureaus and place a credit freeze;

Contact the creditors for any accounts that have been tampered with or opened fraudulently; and

File a report with law enforcement.

For more steps, click here.