In many cases, you don’t know your identity has been stolen or your financial accounts have been comprised until your credit card is declined or your bank account gets drained. The panic that rushes through you when you realize what has happened is nothing compared to panic you’ll feel when you discover the nearendless nightmare that comes with trying to reverse the damage There are many safeguards you can take to protect yourself from identity theft and credit card fraud. First and foremost, you must understand what constitutes identity theft and the various methods crooks can use to obtain your identity.

In some cases, you may be unwittingly contributing to the criminal activity by openly displaying your personal information or by being careless with your financial data. In other situations, you may be collateral damage in a large infrastructure security breach that provides financial data on thousands of people within a database to a technologically tsavvy hacker.

By knowing some of the different routes a criminal can take to get your personal information, you can begin to use safeguards to help prevent fraudulent activities and protect your own finances. The safeguards don’t have to be large, life-altering security procedures, and they may only require a few small, simple adjustments to your everyday activities.

Unfortunately, even with all the proper safeguards in place, you can still end up a victim of identity theft. If this happens, there are steps you need to take immediately to mitigate the damage and begin reversing the process. You should be aware that even though you weren’t responsible for the theft or at fault for what occurred, the responsibility for cleaning up the mess will fall squarely on your shoulders.

The good news is that with a little luck and swift action, you can take back your life and reclaim control of your finances. The even better news is that by understanding identity theft in detail, you can get fly under a thief ’s radar and reduce the chance your identity will even be stolen in the first place.