Avoiding ID Theft During The Holidays

The IRS probably isn’t going to take the time to e-mail you personally with holiday wishes. And although President Obama sends out his share of electronic messages, the one about how you can nab your slice of the TARP funds likely is too good to be true.

Around the holidays, phishing scams and e-mail viruses are as plentiful as the snow that piled up on the East Coast, and they can be even more disruptive: Experts say hackers and thieves use the inherent good tidings of the season to send innocent-looking transmissions that may actually be grinches designed to steal your password, Social Security number and other personal information.

Recently Penn State University had to send out an alert warning students about bogus e-mails sent from addresses like administrator@psu.edu or webmail@psu.edu.

Other dangers include those ubiquitous free e-cards, or shopping sites that require the installation of a special viewer or a plug-in. “When you install the viewer, guess what you've really installed? A virus, of course,” says Dave Moore, a computer-store owner in Norman, Okla., writing in that city’s newspaper, The Transcript. “This tactic led to the huge success of the Storm virus in the holiday season of 2008.”

Moore writes that he never opens attachments unless the e-mail is from someone he knows, and the subject line contains specific information about what’s in the attachment.

Another pitfall involves the growing use of debit cards for shopping. Although debit cards carry many of the same protections as credit cards, there could be fine print. For instance, purchases made with debit cards that carry the MasterCard logo aren’t covered if a PIN is used; and Visa won’t cover any ATM withdrawals, or transactions not processed by its own network, reports Eileen Connelly of The Associated Press.