IN.gov, the official website of the state of Indiana, and Indiana Attorney General Greg Zoeller launched an Identity theft Prevention Toolkit in an effort to aid Hoosiers in protecting themselves against identity theft through education, detection practices, and corrective procedures.

"Identity theft is a real crime with serious costs for victims and that's why our office created an easy-to-use toolkit and webpage that offers help ranging from prevention to identity restoration," Zoeller said. "These resourceful tools now available at your fingertips could help prevent you from losing thousands of dollars, time spent repairing your name or credit and the stress of being victimized."

The toolkit, available at http://www.indianaconsumer.com/idtheft, allows one to keep an inventory of the contents in a purse or wallet in order to contact creditors upon the loss or theft of information as well as detailed notes of all contacts with your financial institutions and law enforcement agencies, including the names, dates, phone numbers, and topics discussed. Account registration is free to complete by creating a secure username and password.

"Identity Theft Prevention Toolkit is the latest online service offering available to the Indiana consumer free of charge through www.IN.gov ," said Brian Arrowood, the State of Indiana's Chief Information Officer. "This was created in effort to keep customer information accurate, up to date and accessible from any device that has internet access."

Other fraud prevention applications currently offered by IN.gov include:

-- RREAL IN- http://in.gov/apps/in_rreal/Login.aspx

-- ValIDate- https://secure.in.gov/apps/bmv/validate/