* Twenty-seven million Americans have been victims of identity theft in the last five years and the total cost of identity theft approaches USD48 billion per year (total costs to businesses are USD43 billion and the direct cost to consumers is USD5 billion) * These staggering statistics have prompted security consultant Michael Arata to provide readers with the resources they need to guard themselves against identity theft * In this valuable book, Arata offers easy-to-follow, straightforward advice on understanding identity theft, minimizing risk, maintaining vigilance, choosing who to share personal information with, selecting hard-to-guess PINs, determining victimization, reviewing a credit report, charting a course of action, resolving credit problems, reclaiming good credit, and much more * Explains how to recover successfully if identity theft does occur * Author Michael Arata, CISSP, CPP, CFE, ACLM, is a veteran of the security industry with more than fifteen years of experience