ID theft is defined as "A form of stealing someone's identity in which someone pretends to be someone else by assuming that person's identity, typically in order to access resources or obtain credit and other benefits in that person's name," according to Wikipedia. If left unchecked, ID Theft may spiral into Bad Credit for the victim. This is why you have to monitor your credit, in the name of id theft prevention.

According to Dennis O'Reilly, PC World's editor of the award-winning "Here's How" section, "The best ID theft defense is vigilance." This is why credit monitoring for id theft is the first line of defense.

Credit monitoring for id theft works by showing the fraudulent or outrageous entries being created on the victim's credit report. These entries would then indicate the presence of an identity theft operation or fraudulent act being done with the victim's credit info or even identity data. When this happens, the victim can then file a report in order to freeze his accounts, as well as a dispute report so that he can recover his losses.

While you must definitely regularly check your credit report as part of your financial activities, id theft credit monitoring should also be set in place so that you can prevent an otherwise larger damage against your credit and your data.

The moment you learn that you are an ID theft victim, here are the measures post id theft that you can do, in order to minimize the damages, as well as recover your losses.

1. File a report with the three credit bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian. Although one credit bureau is required to alert the other two of the fraud or ID theft incident, you should still secure your own data by making sure that all three get your fraud report.
   
   
2. Consider a freeze account request with your credit accounts. This way, the ID thief will be stopped from committing further fraudulent activities with your data.
   
   
3. Notify your banks about the fraud committed against you. Also ask what they would be willing to do (i.e. refund you for your losses, hold you accountable only for the mandatory $50 allotted liability for fraud victims), so that you can take advantage of their policies and recover as much of what you lost to the theft, as possible.
   
   
4. 4. As soon as your accounts get restored, change your passwords and ensure that you have more complicated ones, moving forward.

ID theft prevention isn't 100% foolproof, but you can definitely take measures to deal with the crisis. It starts with the basics of good surfing habits, like not clicking links indiscriminately, as well as good security practices, like keeping long and complicated passwords. Remember that hacking programs can easily hack words that come from the dictionary, as well as words that are all in the same case. So whenever you make new accounts, make sure that you have a good, secure password to lock it with. This means incorporating letters, numbers, and special characters, if the service allows that. This way, you can safeguard against ID theft. Practice id theft credit monitoring as well, and you're all set!