LinkedIn and Identity Theft: Important Advice for Hardworking Business Owners, Professionals, and Executives Just Like You

By Andre’ Andropolis

You’re a hardworking small business owner or professional of some sort. Perhaps even a high-ranking executive. You clearly see the value of LinkedIn, and have built up a great profile on that site in order to better sell yourself and your business. Quality referrals, testimonials, and private messages are flying back and forth between you and your LinkedIn connections.

But just how much information are you putting on your LinkedIn profile, either about yourself or about your business?

With each detail of yourself or your business on LinkedIn, the risks of identity theft entering your life increases exponentially. And it’s not just yourself that can fall victim to identity theft. Your business entity can certainly fall prey to it, as well. Fortunately, there are some easy strategies you can immediately implement in order to reduce the risks of identity theft as a result of your LinkedIn presence:

• Use your best judgment when confirming connections - many people are “open networkers” and will connect with just about anyone. While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, and can perhaps even present more quality opportunities to you, approach these connections with some degree of skepticism.
• Don’t list any of your birth information
• Check your LinkedIn profile’s privacy settings, and adjust them accordingly, if necessary
• Don’t list your home address
• If you put something online, whether it's on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Youtube, Pinterest or Flickr, it's public, permanent and exploitable
• Change your LinkedIn password frequently, incorporating a diverse variety of letters in both cases, numbers, and any symbols the system will allow you to use
• Don’t use this same password for multiple online accounts

While LinkedIn, and any social media profile, for that matter, has the potential to offer you great opportunity by providing you with a forum to share with countless others who you are and what you do, it is imperative to exercise caution. All it takes is a hacker with a little know-how to take some of the information from your LinkedIn profile and use it to open accounts of all kinds, credit cards, and so on, in either your name or your company’s. Before you know it, you find yourself experiencing identity theft and locked in a tough, uphill battle to clear your good name.

Fortunately, there are easy strategies that you can implement this very moment to reduce your risks of identity theft. Take these first steps now. You’ve worked too hard and have come too far to not take a few moments out to give yourself added protection and peace of mind.

The author is an identity theft expert and an independent associate with LegalShield. Since 1972, LegalShield has been providing families, employees and small businesses with affordable access to quality legal services and the Identity Theft Shield. The Company provides legal service benefits through a network of independent law firms across the U.S. and Canada. LegalShield is owned by a New York-based private equity group. He can be reached at 414-218-1495 or at andrej.legalshield.com .

The Facebook Generation Says “I do” : Steps You Can Take to Reduce the Risk of Identity Theft for You and Your New Family

By Andre’ Andropolis

You’re somewhere in your 20s or early 30s. You got hooked on Facebook when you were in college or perhaps even in high school, and you still go on it frequently. Heck, you may still have a Myspace profile lingering out there in cyberspace.

But you’re married now, and perhaps even raising a family.

With your spouse and each child, the risks of identity theft entering your life, whether it affects your own identity or that of someone you love, dramatically increases. Fortunately, there are some easy steps you can take right now to reduce your risk of identity theft. In no particular order, they are:

• Don’t list your full birth date on your social media profiles
• Don’t list your home address on your social media profiles
• Use caution when requesting/adding or confirming friendships or connections on your social media profiles
• Change your account passwords frequently, using a nice variety of numbers, capital and lowercase letters, and any symbols you’re allowed to use
• Don’t use the same password for multiple accounts
• Check your privacy settings on your social media profiles and adjust them accordingly if necessary
• Any profiles out there you no longer really use? Clean up unnecessary clutter you have online by deleting them
• If you have children, use caution in what you share on your social media profiles about them

To briefly address the last point, let’s be realistic here. It can be very tough for parents to not want to share information about their children across their various social networks. And it clearly shows. All across the Internet, photos, birthdates, vitals at birth, the name of the hospital, and other information about their children are freely shared by doting parents. But while it’s tough to resist that urge to share with others information about the greatest, most meaningful, and beautiful joy in your life, you have to try. You have to use caution. All it takes, unfortunately, is for someone who knows what they’re doing, to take a few of the facts that you have shared about your children online, and run with them. Before you know it, you’re experiencing identity theft. And identity theft can be a long, painful road to go down, one that can drain you emotionally, mentally, physically, and financially as you fight to clear your name, or that of your spouse or child.

Fortunately, there are easy strategies that you can implement immediately to protect yourself and those you love by reducing the risks of identity theft.

The author is an identity theft expert and an independent associate with LegalShield. Since 1972, LegalShield has been providing families, employees and small businesses with affordable access to quality legal services and the Identity Theft Shield. The Company provides legal service benefits through a network of independent law firms across the U.S. and Canada. LegalShield is owned by a New York-based private equity group. He can be reached at 414-218-1495 or at andrej.legalshield.com .