With the explosion of social media, there's been an equally enormous growth in online crime, according to the Internet Crime Complaint Center. The center received more than 275,000 complaints last year, up 33 percent in the past 12 months. The total reported dollars lost from online scams was estimated at $265 million or about $25 million more than the year before.

So if you and your company are actively using social media, and you probably are, there are several ways to protect yourself from becoming a victim of online theft. For starters, the more a criminal knows about you or your company, the easier it is to con you using email or websites. So keep information about yourself or your business to a minimum on many of the online sites, including Facebook and LinkedIn.

"People don't realize that as they drop information someone may be building a composite of who they are." Peter Spicer, communications manager for Chubb Personal Insurance, tells the Washington Post. Chubb offers a few tips to protect yourself from the onslaught of identity thieves looking for people just like you.

• Never divulge your birth date.
• Don't divulge your pet's name.
• Don't make negative comments about your last employer.
• And don't say nasty things about your neighbors.

For more on protecting your identity:
- check out this Washington Post article

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