This article originally appeared and was published on AOL.com
You may have your holiday plans all set, gotten a head start on your holiday shopping and already dusted off your seasonal decorations — but are you prepared to protect yourself from fraudsters?
An estimated 25.6 million adults in the U.S., or about 10.8 percent of the adult population, were fraud victims in 2011, according to the FTC. And that number is rising as scammers tap into technology to steal personal information.
While many people breathed a sigh of relief when banks began rolling out EMV chip cards for their increased security, that doesn’t mean you should ease up on your personal awareness, especially around the high-traffic holiday season.
“Since the rollout of EMV chip cards, which are more secure than non-chip cards, we’ve been seeing a significant shift from credit card fraud to scams involving identity theft,” Mohamad Tayba, Alliant Credit Union’s fraud manager and certified fraud examiner, said.
What’s even scarier, some fraudsters will hold onto your information, and wait until the victim or financial institution has its guard down.
More from AOL.com: