Identity theft – the fraudulent use of your name and identifying data by someone else to obtain credit, merchandise or services – is an equal-opportunity offense, affecting victims of all races, incomes and ages. Many don’t even know they’ve been ripped off for a year or more after the fact.

To help protect yourself from identity theft, you first need to recognize the ways thieves can get information about you. Here are just a few of the tricks ID thieves use, and how you can combat them:

¢ Pretexting. E-mail spammers, telemarketers and even some clerks and salespeople use a false pretense to lure you into revealing personal information. We recommend against giving personal information to someone who has called or e-mailed you unsolicited. And if you must use e-mail to send your Social Security number or other personal data, make sure that you use a secure Internet connection by checking your browser window for a secure-connection icon.

¢ Mail theft. Individuals and organized rings steal mail from unlocked mailboxes, trying to find letters containing personal information, preapproved credit offers and “live” checks. Homeowners and landlords can help prevent this by replacing regular mailboxes with locked boxes. Even mail that’s discarded can come back to haunt you, as criminals will dig through trash for bills, medical statements or other papers that can be used to obtain credit or access to your accounts. Shredding these documents before tossing them can stymie the diver.

¢ Salvaging discarded data. In a less-messy variation on Dumpster diving, MIT graduate students were able to recover sensitive files from hard drives on one-third to one-half of the used computers they tested for a recent study. Hard-drive shredding software, or destroying the hard drives before discarding a personal computer, will delete this threat.

¢ Skimming. Thieves use hand-held magnetic card readers that can be bought on the Internet or improvised to glean personal information off the magnetic strip on credit and debit cards. The culprits have included waiters, gas station attendants and store clerks. Being watchful when your card is processed during purchases can help thwart this kind of theft, but a pre-emptive measure is for businesses to do a better job of screening employees.