Online Identity

We all know that our online identity is self-created to a degree within our social networks, but Google your own name and you may be surprised to learn how many external sources impact our online identities as well. Once you’ve done pondering all that unexpected information consider how easy it is for your online identity to be tampered with and then ask yourself, how easy would it be for my identity to be stolen or more likely hi-jacked? Most external influences upon your identity will be innocent. School clubs or activities you took part in but didn’t realise would be recorded for all time, that sort of thing. Some identity tampering is more sinister and could represent a real danger to your personal and professional reputation.

Identity hijacking

Identity hijacking via social networks is increasingly common and used to do anything from playing jokes to committing crime. Crimes may be monetary like signing up for accounts and using these to make purchases, sales or trades under a false identity (yours). Or worse still, to lure people to engage with sexual predators or cyber bully. Identities targeted for these crimes are often student age individuals because of the trust element associated with people still in school and because pictures, etc., will reflect a younger less threatening image. One way to make sure this isn’t happening to you is to search your own name amongst social networking sites and immediately report anything that is too suspiciously like you.

Identity theft

At its worst identity theft occurs when a person’s computer has been hacked and their details, including passwords and bank codes are stolen. Once these are taken the process for reclaiming your identity is tedious and sometimes expensive. In an education environment hackers may even steal your identity to falsely acquire loans, withdraw books and even steal your essays and other items you’ve worked hard to produce. The best defence against identity theft is always a solid, updated daily and comprehensive anti virus software.