Or, heading to your banking app only to find your account empty.

The worst part you have no idea how all this happened, or who’s behind it.

This is the nightmare millions of people who lose their online identities experience every year.

An illustration of a hooded hacker with an obscured face holding a large fingerprint against a red background.

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The most obvious impact is, however, on people’s finances.

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Worse still, Kibla explains, oftentimes criminals operate from outside the jurisdiction.

This makes it almost impossible for local police to investigate and catch the perpetrators of this crime.

Impunity is, perhaps, one of the biggest strengths behind ID theft schemes.

Phishing

“The victim is always going to be out of pocket really,” Farrell from CyXel told TechRadar.

“It’s the fear that’s going to continue.

Criminals are inside their laptops, inside their phones, they’ve got everything.

Woman shocked by online scam, holding her credit card outside

“The longer you wait, the less chance you have of stopping it,” said Kibla.

Getting your money back may be very difficult.

This is why cybersecurity software providers are increasingly offeringID theft protectionalongside their VPN or antivirus software.

ID scans andcredit monitoring toolsare an easy way to stay informed of any malicious activities as they occur.

The more data you share online, the more chances you have for your identity to be stolen.

This is why you should avoid as much as possible to put your information and machine at risk.

Abu Kibla, Managing Director at Stuart Miller, also recommends never saving your card details on any sites.

That’s because criminals can access these card details and sell them.

TechRadar created this content as part of a paid partnership with Surfshark.

The contents of this article are entirely independent and solely reflect the editorial opinion of TechRadar.