Medicare card
Even if you aren’t carrying your Social Security card itself, your SSN might show up on an even more common culprit: a Medicare card. Old Medicare numbers, which are valid until January 2020, are just your Social Security number with one or two letters and numbers tacked on—not too hard to decode. To avoid giving out one of the most serious numbers a hacker can steal, only carry your card when you have a medical appointment, says Adam Levin, founder of global identity protection and data risk services firm CyberScout and author of Swiped. “All other days you make a Xerox copy of it, wipe out all but one or two numbers, and on the back write the [phone] number of an emergency contact,” he says. That way, rescuers will still be able to get the information they need during an emergency.
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