Becoming a victim of identity fraud is far from uncommon here in the United States. In fact, more than 16 million people will be personally impacted by identity fraud over the course of just one single year in just this country alone. Sadly, up to one quarter of these people do not even realize that they have become such victims unless it is by accident. This means that the progression of identity fraud as likely gone on for quite some time before it is ever even identified and dealt with. Therefore, the consequences of identity fraud are likely to be much more pronounced.

Fortunately, however, there are a number of ways to keep identity fraud at bay. For one thing, just keeping a close eye on your bank accounts can help you to mitigate the impacts of identity fraud. Simply by keeping a good handle on the money that is being inputted and taken out of your accounts, you will be able to spot and stop any fraudulent activity as soon as it occurs. Therefore, you’ll be able to prevent identity fraud from progressing and worsening much past when it first begins.

There are other ways in which identity fraud can be prevented as well. For one thing, keeping safe while on the internet is something of a huge importance. This has become more and more true with each passing year, thanks to the rapid growth of internet activity. After all, now nearly four billion people have internet access throughout the world, a number that will only continue to increase with the passage of time. And because of this incredible growth, it is necessary to take more internet safety precautions than ever before, as the world of cyber crime has also only continued to grow and grow.

Unfortunately, only half of all people have said that they avoid inputting their personal and sensitive information into sites that look risky. While this is certainly an improvement over years past, when internet security was certainly even more lax, more people need to take internet crime seriously. By doing so, we can help to ensure that fewer incidents of cyber crime, particularly in the realm of identity theft, occur. Ultimately, simply being much more discretionary with your information can help to keep you out of the clutches of online predators who are just waiting to steal your identity.

But this is not the only way that we should be fighting back against identity fraud. In fact, more identity fraud still occurs from the use of paper documents (even with the rapid growth of the online world over the course of recent years). The use of a secure paper shredder can help to keep such issues from coming into fruition. A secure paper shredder should be used in many different capacities. A secure paper shredder is already used on an individual level by many, though up to 30% of all people have said that they don’t take such measures and don’t utilize a secure paper shredder to conduct secure paper shredding when it comes to disposing of their critical documents. Not using a secure paper shredder and not participating in secure paper shredding can make you as an individual much more susceptible to identity theft and other such security issues.

The secure paper shredder should be used outside of the personal level as well. Industrial shredders and high security paper shredders should be used in just about every office space where paper documents of any kind of a sensitive nature are utilized. Secure paper shredders can keep important company and even customer documents from becoming purloined for the purposes of crime and identity theft. As more than 40% of all people have said that they would stop utilizing a company if they suffered a breach of this nature, investing in high capacity paper shredders is very much an investment that pays for itself in many ways over the course of time. It’s an investment to protect the company, but it’s an investment to keep customers safe as well. Ultimately, this safety can be achieved on multiple levels all throughout the United States.