The importance of protecting your social security number. It prevents people from stealing your identity.

This number is your lifeline.

About 26 million Americans get their identity stolen each year, how can you make sure you're not one of them?

"You want to be very careful with how you share your social security number to any sort of institution that might need it for, financial information or for background checks or things like that," University of Central Florida Assistant Professor of Computer Science Kevin Moran said.

So, who should you be giving your social security number to? 

You should only be giving your social security number to your employer, your bank, your college and to government agencies. That's it, and the way you give it out is equally important.

"What you don't want to be doing, for example, is emailing your social security number in an unencrypted email to somebody," Moran said.

No one who needs your social security number will ever go to you for it.

The Office of the Inspector General recently released a scam alert about scammers asking for your social security number in order to get your 2025 cost-of-living increase.

So, if anyone asks for you social security number by phone or email, contact the person or business directly with a phone number you researched yourself.

If you believe you're a victim of identity theft, go to identitytheft.gov to start your report and see other steps you can take to recover your identity.