I just think the best way to safeguard yourself is use passwords that contain numbers, uppercase, lowercase and have nothing to do with your name or family etc.

Use different variations of the same password across different sites etc and never store them on your computer in a word doc etc - write them down if you need to store somewhere.

Avoid 'dodgy' websites at all costs and in particular dodgy emails with dodgy links - I know that's a pretty generic statement but 95% of dodgy emails are pretty obvious and virtually no respectable website/company asks for your username or password details via email.

If you abide by just those few simple things AND only use your credit card on 100% respectable/known websites where required and you can't use paypal etc then you should be pretty darn secure. That's the general rule of thumb i've always followed and never lost money touch wood, astounds me the number of people who manage to lose money via dodgy emails etc.