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MISSOURI -- A common fear among Americans may be legitimate for those in the Show-Me-State.

According to the latest Federal Trade Commission report, Missouri ranks 20^th in the nation for the most identity theft complaints.

At the top of that list of complaints is credit card fraud, as well as phone or utilities fraud. Todd Davis, Chairman and CEO of LifeLock Inc., points to the internet as a major culprit, but urges you not to shy away from using the web; just do so with caution.

Be wary of emails stating there is “some money available to you,” or your “tax return is going to be audited,” or you’re about to “close down your PayPal account.”

“If you have someone ask [for your personal information], you need to ask yourself, 'Why are they asking me for this information? Should I really give it?'” Davis said.

Peer-to-peer networking is one of the many ways hackers can snatch your information via the Internet.

“Innocently, whether it's your kids [or] your grandkids; [they] think they're just downloading music for file-sharing, but the reality is that [it] can expose everything on your hard drive, and we've been able to pull up hundreds of thousands of tax returns from people who had no idea they were making that available to anybody else on the network," Davis said.

Hackers also often go through those who collect a lot of data, such as doctors, dentists, employers and insurance providers.

With all of these ways for thieves to steal identities and personal information, consumers are in need of multiple ways to protect themselves.

One suggestion is to obtain your free copy of your credit report from the three major credit bureaus.

“You can do that once a year with each one of those, so if you stagger them across the year, it typically gives you a pretty good opportunity to find anywhere that you may have been compromised so that you can respond to it quickly,” Davis said.

Also, when giving personal information out over the internet, look for a lock in the bottom right corner of your browser. The “lock-sign” can be easily replicated, so don’t be too trusting if you see a lock on the actual webpage. Make sure it is on your browser.

Also, look for the prefix “https” when giving out personal information over the internet, to make sure the website is secure.