12/19/07 Save Your Identity

Save your Identity! I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. The holidays are upon us and many people in rural areas have to either make a trek into more metropolitan areas to do Christmas shopping or resort to shopping online. Washington State Attorney General, Rob McKenna says there are people out there waiting to steal our personal information. MCKENNA: There are many avenues identity thieves pursue to steal out identity information, in fact if you look at all the causes or sources of identity theft the single leading source still only account for 30% of all ID theft. That would be stolen purses, stolen wallets taken out of homes, taken out of people's desks at work and often taken out of their cars. The other ways we see it happening is over the internet. About 10% of identity theft cases begin when someone is tricked into providing their information over the internet in response to a phishing email. Ah, yes. The phishing email. A new term for everyone to be aware of spelled p-h-i-s-h. MCKENNA: Never navigate to a website from a link sent to you. Let's say someone sends you an email saying hey we've got a really special deal going on sweaters. Click on this link to go to our website. They might even be posing as a retailer you know. You never want to do that because you can't be sure that the link that's sent to you by email is really a link to the authentic website. It could be a link to what's called a spoofed website. I must get at least a dozen of these phishing emails a day. If it sound too good to be true, it probably is. But identity theft can come from other ways says McKenna. MCKENNA: Identity theft starts with stolen mail or a phony change of address form. People lose their bank account statements or credit card statements or other personal information. About a third of the time identity theft starts when someone we've entrusted our information to; a company, a non-profit, a government agency loses control of the information they possess. There are many other schemes out there to get your information. Some are quite elaborate and some can be really simple. MCKENNA: There are many, many ways it happens and there are lots of things we can do to protect ourselves but even if we are doing everything we are supposed to do on the front end sometimes you have to take steps to mitigate the risk after you realize your information has been compromised. Tomorrow we'll talk more with Attorney General Rob McKenna about dealing with identity theft. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.