National Protect Your Identity Week begins on October 17th

Posted by Robert Siciliano on October 7th, 2009

Robert Siciliano is a NextAdvisor.com Expert Guest Blogger

The National Foundation for Credit Counseling has announced its second annual National Protect Your Identity Week, which will occur from October 17 through 24. National Protect Your Identity Week is intended to educate consumers about identity theft protection. The Council of Better Business Bureaus has partnered with the NFCC to sponsor this initiative, and a number of other national organizations will also lend their support as Protect Your Identity Week Coalition Members.

To learn about relevant educational events in your area, including identity theft workshops, credit report reviews, and on site shredding, go to ProtectYourIDNow.org, where you'll also find identity theft prevention tips, videos, an interactive quiz to assess your risk of identity theft, and resources for victims.

This year, ProtectYourIDNow.org has added a new feature, a blog where I will post daily during Protect Your Identity Week, and weekly therafter, in order to provide insight, information, and advice on topics relevant to identity theft. My goal is to keep the public informed and ten steps ahead of the bad guys. (Of course, I hope you'll also continue to follow me here at NextAdvisor.com, along with the excellent advice of Caitlin, Kent and Joe.)

The Identity Theft Resource Center subdivides identity theft into five categories:

• Business/commercial identity theft (in which the thief uses the victim's business name to obtain credit)
• Criminal identity theft (in which the thief poses as the victim when apprehended for a crime)
• Financial identity theft (in which the thief uses the victim's identity to obtain goods and services)
• Identity cloning (in which the thief uses the victim's information to assume his or her identity in daily life)
• Medical identity theft (in which the thief uses the victim's information to obtain medical care or drugs)

I will be discussing these and other fraud related issues on an ongoing basis. In the meantime, take basic steps to protect your own identity. You can attempt to prevent new account fraud by getting a credit freeze, setting up your own fraud alerts, or investing in an identity theft protection service.

Robert Siciliano, identity theft speaker, discusses social media identity theft.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwFC0jfxTco[/youtube]

Robert Siciliano is CEO of IDTheftSecurity.com , an identity theft expert, professional speaker, security analyst, published author and television news correspondent. Siciliano works with Fortune 1000 companies and startups as an advisor on product launches, branding, messaging, representation, SEO and media. Siciliano's thoughts and advice on all these matters appear often in both the televised and print news media including CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, FOX, Forbes and USA Today. He has 25 years of security training as a member of the American Society of Industrial Security. He is the author of two books, including The Safety Minute: Living on High Alert; How to take control of your personal security and prevent fraud. He's also partnered with Uni-Ball to help raise awareness about the growing threat of identity theft and to provide tips on how you can protect yourself.