
“An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” When Benjamin Franklin penned this enduring phrase, he was advising the public on how to avoid house fires. But his words are also useful when applied to a modern safety issue: identity theft.
By some estimates, roughly one-third of U.S. residents have experienced some form of identity theft — a crime that includes everything from credit card theft to tax fraud to insurance fraud — and that figure is expected to rise. Especially in the wake of several high-profile data breaches over the last year, protection from identity theft is at the top of many people's minds, with good reason.