How to protect your personal data from scammers lurking online and beyond? Abi and the State Police have realized a handbook with 12 tips to avoid the risks associated with identity theft. These are common sense suggestions, which are always worth keeping in mind. Here they are.
- In case of loss or theft of personal documents, go immediately to the Police Authorities for file a complaint. If, on the other hand, credit and/or debit cards are lost, after having ordered their blocking, the report must also be communicated to your bank.
- Be very careful in disposal of paper documentation that contains personal information (e.g. account statements, bills): it is advisable to make the sensitive data contained in the documents unreadable before trashing them.
- Protect with care access credentials to online accounts and credit and/or debit card codes and all other access codes (e.g. SPID); if you choose to save this data on your devices (e.g. computer and/or mobile phone) make sure they are adequately protected (e.g. encrypted). In the same way, the credentials and codes needed to have one's digital signature must always be kept carefully guarded.
- Safeguard your own payment cards equipped with "contactless" technology (i.e. those for which entry into the POS is not required to carry out the transaction), with shielded cases (coated in aluminum) to minimize the possibility of being victims of scams that involve reading the chip.
- Change your login credentials frequently (passwords) to enter online accounts and avoid using passwords that could be easily identified by fraudsters (e.g. date of birth). In general, a password, to have a level of security considered adequately protective, must be characterized by upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters.
- 6. It is important to learn to recognize authentic messages from fraudulent messages. Banks never ask for account access credentials and customer card codes. If you receive requests of this type, notify your bank to have confirmation of its non-involvement in sending and avoid giving any reply to the request received.
- Every time you use a public computer to access your online accountthen you need to remember close the session (logout). Furthermore, it is always preferable to type in the online address of your bank yourself and not click on addresses that have already been stored. If the connection is public, there is a greater risk that possible malicious people will exploit the previously opened connection to steal information.
- Fraudulent messages often contain malicious links (through which the computer and/or mobile phone are hacked) or links to redirect the user to clone sites (used to steal personal information). For this reason, it is essential that you never click on these links.
- Be wary of alleged operators asking for information personal, bank or credit to verify identity or to find out where to send parcels, money, fake winnings or documents related to justice.
- In case your mobile phone is no longer able to make/receive calls, verify the reasons by contacting your telephone operator: you could be the victim of a fraud carried out by exchanging your telephone card (ie a scam called Sim Swap).
- Use with care and caution the social channels and above all never communicate or share personal or financial data through these channels.
- Choose a antivirus software and keep it up-to-date, regularly install updates to your operating system to protect all your equipment and devices from malware infections.
The project was carried out by the Banking Association in collaboration with prestigious and qualified interlocutors such as Ossif (the Albi's research center on anti-crime security), CERTFin (the public-private cooperative initiative directed by ABI and the Bank of Italy aimed at increasing the cyber risk management capacity of banking and financial operators), the Postal Police and Consumer Associations (Acu, Adiconsum, Adoc, Asso-Consum, Assoutenti, Casa del Consumatore, Consumer Protection Center (Ctcu), Cittadinanzattiva, Codacons, Confconsumatori, Federconsumatori, Consumer League, Citizen Defense Movement, Consumer Movement, Union for the Defense of Consumers (Udicon), National Consumer Union).
