Impostor

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What Does Impostor Mean?

An impostor is a person who makes a false claim to be someone else in order to deceive others for financial gain, forgery or other illegal purposes through various social networks. The impostor may thereby obtain key pieces of personal information such as a Social Security Number or a driver’s license number.

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The actions of an impostor are also referred to as identity theft.

Techopedia Explains Impostor

Identity theft is often conducted electronically through hacking or phishing. To prevent identity theft, experts reccomend that people regularly check their credit reports, avoid giving out any personal information in response to unknown emails, always destroy digitally stored data and opt for safe online transactions.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.