The Indiana Department of Revenue is teaming up with the IRS to prevent Hoosiers’ tax information from getting into the wrong hands.
The organizations say data breaches are at a record high, leading to 145 million Americans having their personal information stolen.
Authorities advise residents to use the Indiana Attorney General’s Identity Theft Victim Kit along with these other tips:
- Take advantage of any credit monitoring offers made by the company that was breached.
- Take advantage of the free service to place a freeze on your credit accounts to prevent access to your credit records. At a minimum, place a fraud alert on your credit accounts by contacting one of the three major credit bureaus. A fraud alert on your credit records is not as secure as a freeze, but it’s free.
- Reset passwords on online accounts, especially financial, email and social media accounts. Some experts recommend at least 10-digit passwords mixing letters, numbers and special characters. Use different passwords for each account and use password manager to keep track of your unique passwords.
- Use two-factor authentication wherever it is offered on financial, email and social media accounts. Two-factor authentication requires entry of a username and password and then a security code, generally sent via text to a mobile phone you’ve pre-registered.
Data breaches increased nationwide at 29% during the first half of 2017.
