Safeguard Your Customers' -- and Your Own -- Online Identity

'Tis the season for eggnog, mistletoe and ... cybercrooks? It's unfortunate, but as consumers become more comfortable with online shopping, cybercrooks are getting better at finding newer, sneakier ways to trick them into passing on personal information for the crooks' gain.

According to the Electronics Retailing Association, consumers are expected to spend more than $24.3 billion online this holiday season -- that's double-digit growth from last year's numbers. But as Christopher Faulkner, CEO of CI Host, a Dallas-based Web hosting and Web site management company, points out, with the onset of Cyber Monday on Nov. 27 -- the kickoff to the online shopping season -- cybercrooks are more than ready to pounce on online consumers.

Unfortunately, it's simply the nature of the season that has cybercrooks drooling over the increased opportunities for theft. As Todd Davis, CEO of ID theft prevention company LifeLock in Tempe, Arizona, says, there are simply too many large purchases coming through this time of year for credit card companies to be as vigilant as they normally are: "During the holiday season, thieves know they can put more on a card without being caught." According to Davis, 40% of all annual instances of identity theft occur between Nov. 15 and Dec. 31.

So what's a consumer to do? Be proactive. A good first step, Davis says, is to place a fraud alert on your credit report prior to becoming a victim. "Placing a fraud alert with the major credit bureaus -- Equifax, Experian and TransUnion -- is a great front line of defense." By doing this, Davis explains, any time someone tries to change the information on your credit report or open up a new account, the credit card company has to call you first for verbal authorization.

The LifeLock CEO is so confident in fraud alerts that he was willing to give us his Social Security number for this article. "I want people to understand, No. 1, your information's out there. The idea that you're going to hide it is impossible." But by placing a fraud alert on your credit report, Davis believes consumers can stop identity theft from occurring altogether. (If you decide to do this, understand that you need to reissue a fraud alert every 90 days, unless you've already reported an identity theft to the credit bureaus, in which case the fraud alert lasts for seven years.)