Several years ago, on a trip to Paris, I was pick pocketed on a crowded metro train. In a flash, every credit card I owned was gone. Luckily I’m anal about that kind of thing, and I’d stashed photocopies of all of my cards, front and back, in my hotel room. Translation: I had my account numbers, plus the phone numbers to call in case they were lost or stolen (bingo). Within half an hour, all of my cards were canceled, and aside from the hassle, the thief only made off with about $60 in cash.

In a somewhat alarming report released by Javelin Strategy & Research earlier this week, identity theft was up 22 percent in 2008. And I could've been the victim of the most common type of theft—the low-tech kind that happens when you physically lose your financial information. According to the report, where the method was known, nearly half of fraudsters (43 percent) took advantage of lost or stolen wallets, checkbooks, and credit and debit cards.

Even scarier: Women were more likely than men to have been victims last year. Some 26 percent more likely.

So what can you do?

Guard your pin. Use a credit card in stores instead of a debit card—it’s too easy for someone to see you entering your four-digit pass code. At the ATM, shield your pin-punching hand with the other one, and put your debit card away quickly.

Get less mail. Switch as many items as possible to electronic statements and bills. The less you receive by USPS, the smaller the probability that someone’s going to snag your info out of your mailbox.

Report lost or stolen cards immediately. Nearly three-quarters of fraud incidents happened less than a week after the data was swiped.

Set up alerts. Men were more likely to use email or mobile alerts to clue them in to suspicious activity. Talk to your credit card company about whether those kinds of tools are available to you—then use them.

How do you keep your data safe?