File Sharing Applications: Another way to be a victim of identity theft

File Sharing Applications: Another way to be a victim of identity theft

If you are using a peer-to-peer file sharing program to download music and videos, you may be a prime candidate for Identity Theft. Applications such as Limewire, Edonkey and numerous others on the Internet may also allow individuals to download personal documents from your computer at will. The issue stems from the sharing of the “My Documents” folder as the default folder for sharing media. Most users and file sharing applications will select the “My Documents” folder because that is where most of the media files are located. But think about it... what else do you have in the “My Documents” folder? Family Pictures, Personal Documents and etc...

To date, I have read and heard of individuals accessing mortgage applications, loan paper work and even 1040 tax information with the social security numbers of a whole family.

My recommendation if you do insist on using a file sharing program is to create a folder where the sharing can take place such as “Shared Documents” and do not place any personal information in that folder.