Piracy: identity theft to facilitate attacks

Given the lack of a strict legal framework for the protection of personal information on the Internet, it’s up to Internet users to be rigorous. With anonymity via a pseudonym, you think you’re protected from cybercrime. But the paradox is that this identification also protects pirates.

Protecting yourself means being cautious in all your exchanges on the web, both in terms of the content of the information exchanged and the means used to ensure this exchange. One of the first pieces of advice you can easily apply is to equip yourself with anti-virus, anti-spam and anti-spyware software worthy of the name. But that doesn’t rule out the installation of a firewall. To ensure secure online exchanges, you need to pay close attention to the performance of your software, and to its durability by updating it regularly.

Another important point for limiting the risk of identity theft is the choice of passwords for your Internet accounts. These passwords are all the more important on sites where you carry out transactions. It’s important to choose the right password. Cybercriminals are quite intuitive when it comes to finding passwords. So avoid passwords they can deduce, such as your city or date of birth. A password should be as unique as possible, so avoid using the same password for all your Internet accounts. The combination of numbers and letters in a password is the surest way of making it unique and therefore less easily found.

If identity theft is on the increase in attacks by Internet pirates. By paying attention to the information provided on the Net, checking your bank statements and combining the two principles outlined above, you can feel a little protected. But vigilance is the most important response to this type of attack.