Somewhere under the humid forest canopy of Mindo Valley, Ecuador, on a birding trip with my family, I picked up a parasite. A seeming spider bite on my neck erupted into an ugly lesion, and back home, I began another journey through the medical system and a series of puzzled physicians.
We all have enough to worry about and better things to deal with — the last thing you need is a shadowy hacker opening a new bank account or credit card in your name. Yet identity theft and financial fraud are on the rise. In one year alone during the COVID-19 pandemic, from 2019 to 2020, identity theft cases in the U.S. increased by a whopping 45%, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
