Hawai’i Ranks Among Least Vulnerable to Identity Theft, Fraud

Wallethub recently conducted a study on ranking 2015’s States Most Vulnerable to Identity Theft and Fraud.

Hawai’i ranked among the top overall least vulnerable states in slot number two, just behind South Dakota and above Maine, West Virginia, and Kentucky, rounding out the top five.

Wallethub used nine key metrics that ranged from the total number of identity theft complaints per 100,000 residents to total cybercrime-related dollar losses per capita to determine the rankings.

According to the study, Hawai’i held the number one space for fewest phone or utilities fraud complaints per capita. In the category, the District of Columbia and Michigan tied for the highest number.

Hawai’i had the second lowest identity theft complaints per capita, just behind South Dakota. The District of Columbia, Washington, and Florida tied for the most identity theft complaints per capita in the U.S.

In addition, Hawai’i ranked second when it came to the fewest government-documents or benefits fraud complaints per capita, again ranking second to South Dakota.

The state also ranked second with the fewest employment fraud complaints per capita in the nation. Maine held the number one spot, with Arizona ranking as the state with the highest number of fraudulent employments complaints.

Avoiding identity theft and fraud may seem like a tough hill to climb, but Wallethub’s analysis follows with simple tips on how to protect yourself.

Emphasize E-mail Security: Use extra secure passwords and establish a two-step verification for the account.

Sign Up for Credit Monitoring: Credit monitoring can provide important information, like when changes are made to your credit report.

Leverage Account Alerts and Update Contact Information: An online manager for all your online account and keeping information up to date can make it more difficult for identity thieves to hijack our information.

Exercise Commonsense Online: Don’t opens unrecognized e-mails, don’t download unknown files, don’t send account numbers and passwords via e-mail or messenger applications and don’t enter financial or personal information into websites that don’t use “https” as a prefix.

A total of 690 breaches with access to more than 176 million records have taken place in 2015, according to the Identity Theft Resource Center. Among the largest hacks have involved Anthem, CVS, and the United States Office of Personnel Management.