KERRI ANNE RENZULLI @kerenzulliBY
“I’m really just looking at the show.” » P.
Illustrations by PAUL DUDIKOV NEWSWEEK.COM 11
to fraudsters eager to nab their personal data. The consumers continue to leave themselves vulnerable other log-ins they use for their online accounts.culprit: the highly predictable passwords, PINs and than 14 million Americans a year become victims of identity theft, according to the latest estimates. Yet victims are now on the hook for at least a portion That’s an increasingly costly mistake. Mnew cybersecurity breaches seem to be an almost weekly occurrence lately and more fraud ore
of the expenses that data thieves ring up in their name and the amount they’re paying is rising too. All told, 3.3 million vic-tims bore some financial liability for fraud perpetrated on their accounts in 2018 (the latest year that data is available)—that’s nearly three times
fraud promptly But wording in the fine print adds the number who paid out of pocket in 2016. Mwhile, the amount individuals paid more than dou-a caveat: to qualify, the cardholder must use care to to a study last year by Javelin Strategy & Research.protect the card. Could a password that’s easy to policies that say you won’t be held responsible for unauthorized card charges as long as you report the bled to $1.7 billion over the same period, according Sure, both Visa and MasterCard have zero-liability ean-
crack violate those rules? At least one bank in Can-ada this year was reported to have held a 20-year-old student account-able for around $6,800 in fraudulent charges made after she lost her debit card because she’d used the last four digits of her phone number, an easy-Howa HPassword ack-Proof to Create
You Can Actually Forget about all those special characters and the cute personal FXHV\RXWKLQNRQO\\RXFDQɿJXUHRXW'RWKLVLQVWHDGRememberMONEY