We have a checking account with a big bank and I am on a name-to-name basis with many of the employees at the local branch. If the S hits the F and someone takes over my identity and hijacks my entire portfolio I can at least go into that branch office with all my hard copies of my identity.
But what about all my online accounts... savings and brokerage accounts and credit cards? So much of our wealth these days is digitally stored and invested online without ever having met a single living representative of the companies. Half the country's personal information has been breeched, including mine. What's to stop someone tomorrow or in ten years taking that information and one day going into my accounts and changing everything to the point where I can't log into my accounts and I if I call the company they tell me I have to jump through a bunch of red tape to gain access to my account and in the meantime the thief is draining -or has drained- half or more of my net worth? What if this happened to a lot of us at the same time and companies are suddenly overwhelmed and paralyzed?
I mean talk about bringing the economy to it's knees.
Can you tell me this isn't possible?
What do you do to protect yourself? Can you do anything?
