A stolen identity harms your finances and credit, sometimes temporarily and sometimes permanently. The same technology that makes your life easier and more convenient can be used against you by nefarious individuals.

It’s extremely important to keep up to date on the ways wrongdoers attempt to steal your information and the ways to combat it.

This week is Tax Identity Theft Awareness Week, empowering you to be active in protecting yourself from getting your identity stolen during this tax season and helping you know how to deal with it if it does happen. Here are 5 resources or tips you should check out.

1. Raise Privacy Savvy Kids

You might be an expert on protecting your identity, but what about your family? With social media keeping us connected and online 24/7, it is important to consider that your children may not realize just who can see their information when they post something online.

Here are some tips on raising privacy savvy kids from StaySafeOnline.org.

https://staysafeonline.org/resource/stop-think-connect-tips-parents-raising-privacy-savvy-kids

2. Stay on High Alert for Phishing Emails this Tax Season

Criminals know that tax season is a confusing time for a consumer and use this to their advantage. They will pose as financial institutions or even government entities to trick you to give up personal information and defraud you.

Read this security tip from US-CERT.gov and learn how to spot these attempts and protect yourself against them.

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST15-001

3. Bolster Your Passwords

When confronted with a “choose your password” screen, many of us are tempted to type the easiest thing that comes to mind. After all, we don’t want to forget it later. These same easy passwords are also easy for hackers to crack and get your information.

Instead of a password, consider using a “passphrase,” a collection of words and punctuation that makes it much more difficult for hackers to guess.

Instead of using “football” for your password, try using “Ilovetowatchfootball”. You can make it more complex by using something like “I love to watch FOOTBALL!”. You can even use the spaces to increase the length.

These passphrases are still easy to remember but due to their increased complexity and length are much harder to crack.

4. Work with Reputable Companies

There are many websites out there tailor-made to trick you into giving up your personal information. How can you know the difference between these and reputable services?

Website Certificates help in this regard. When a website has a valid certificate, it means the website has been checked by an authority to make sure it actually belongs to that organization. These website addresses are typically accompanied by a padlock icon and have “https://” instead of “http://”.

Learn more about website certificates here:

https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/tips/ST05-010

5. Know what to do if your Identity is stolen

It is a possibility that no matter how careful you are, your identity could still be stolen. What can you do in this case?

Fortunately, http://www.IdentityTheft.gov offers resources in order for you to get started on the path to getting your identity back. Utilizing these resources helps ease the headache of doing everything on your own.

Keeping Up on Identity Protection

These are just some of the ways you can protect yourself against identity theft this tax season. Staying vigilant about the security of your personal and financial information helps make sure your assets are always safeguarded, whether it is tax season or not.