General Tips


General Tips For Protecting Your Identity

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Below are several steps that you can take to make sure that you are doing as much as you can to protect yourself from online identity theft.

  • Keep your system up-to-date. Make sure that you have all the updates for your operating system installed for both your PC and Macintosh computers. To find out how to do these updates, click here.
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  • Keep your anti-virus program up-to-date. Have and keep your virus protection software and patches for your operating system and other software programs regularly. If you do not have Anti-Virus protection or need help updating your anti-virus software, click here.
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  • Do not open files, download programs or click on links sent to you by people you don’t know. Be careful about using file-sharing programs. Opening a file could expose your system to a computer virus or a program known as “spyware,” which could capture your passwords or any other information as you type it into your keyboard.
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  • Do not give out personal information unless you are absolutely sure you know who you are dealing with or you have initiated the contact with that person. Before you share any such information, confirm that you are dealing with a legitimate organization/person. Identity thieves are clever, and have posed as representatives of banks, internet service providers (ISPs), and even government agencies to get people to reveal their SSN, mother’s maiden name, account numbers, and other personal information. You can check an organization’s web site by typing its URL in the address line of your favorite web browser (instead of simply clicking a link). Or call customer service using the number listed on your account statement or in the telephone book.
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  • Be cautious when responding to promotional offers of any kind. Identity thieves create phony promotional offers to get you to give them your personal information.
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  • Look for Web site privacy policies. They should answer questions about maintaining accuracy, access, security, and control of personal information collected by the site, how the information will be used, and whether it will be provided to third parties. If you don’t see a privacy policy - or if you can’t understand it - consider doing business elsewhere.
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  • Use a secure, up-to-date browser like IE7 or Firefox 3.0. This will help guard your online transactions. When submitting information, look for the “lock” icon on the browser’s status bar to be sure your information is secure during transmission.
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  • Before you dispose of a computer, delete all the personal information it had stored. Use a “wipe” utility program to overwrite the entire hard drive. Deleting files using the keyboard or mouse commands or reformatting your hard drive may not be enough because the files may stay on the computer’s hard drive, where they may be retrieved easily.
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  • Keep passwords secret and change them often. To find out how to change your Colorado College account password, click here. Some of the guidlines that we have in place for passwords are there to make sure that they are secure and strong so that people would not be able to break into your account easily.
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    Return to Protect Your Computer and Idenity

    Last revised on 07/24/08


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