You can protect your digital footprint by curating the type of information you share freely on the Internet and using tools to keep your data and networks secure. Controlling access to personal data and exercising self-control online also help protect your digital footprint.
In the 21st century, protecting your digital footprint is just as important as protecting hard copy documents and any other aspect of personal security.
More and more people are making themselves vulnerable to identity theft, blackmail, and abuse through their Internet connections.
Protecting your digital footprint involves combining good online habits and using the right programs to keep your data safe.
Read on to learn more about the different techniques you can use to protect your digital footprint.
What Is Your Digital Footprint?
In personal security, a person’s digital footprint is any aspect of their identity tied up in their electronic records, specifically those that are transferred through online networks.
There are several types of data that help make up your digital footprint.
Some of these items are data that would end up on the Internet regardless of a person’s security habits. Others are pieces of personal data that a person willingly submits to the web.
Here are some of the different types of data that make up someone’s digital footprint:
- Electronic medical records
- Social media posts
- Credit reports
- Background checks
- Private email and direct messages
A good rule of thumb to follow with online security is that if it goes on the Internet, it’s vulnerable if it’s not protected.
Any communications made over an unsecured network or published to social media should be considered on the Internet for life.
When it comes to sensitive information like medical records and banking statements, banks and medical offices are required under law to protect that data online.
But individuals are much more likely to compromise their own digital security through their digital activity than they are to have it breached in a secure network.
How Is A Digital Footprint Used?
Online transfer of electronic data leaves it vulnerable to hackers who use this information for identity theft and blackmail.
By using a special program known as ransomware, hackers can steal a person’s information and passwords and refuse to return them unless they transfer money for ransom.
When online data transfer was new, this kind of identity theft and blackmail was largely aimed at large corporate targets, however it is now being used against individuals, as well.
More and more people are living a large portion of their lives online under their own names rather than an anonymous handle like they did when the internet was new.
Doing this leaves us vulnerable to online attacks such as hacking and doxxing.
Doxxing And Online Stalking
Many hackers target an person’s information online to steal and exploit it, but increasingly there is a new threat, called doxxing.
Doxxing is when a person is hunted using their online information to harass them in real life.
Doxing, or doxxing, is the act of publicly revealing previously private personal information about an individual or organization, usually through the Internet.
Wikipedia
Making threats against others, engaging in aggressive online behavior, or making outrageous statements has long been a part of online interactions since the advent of the Internet in the 1990s.
But these threats are now being associated with recognizable individuals rather than anonymous people behind a computer screen.
As a result, these associations leave people at risk of public ridicule, criminal prosecution, harassment, and worse.
How Can You Check Your Digital Footprint?
If you want to check your digital footprint, the place to start is with your name. Just go to any browser and type in your first and last name, then see what comes up.
After that, do the same with any other names you’ve used during your life, such as a maiden name.
To take it a step further, TDSTelecom recommends adding a search operator to your name. These are characters like @, intex:, or filetype:doc.
They say to do the following:
- Search: FirstName Lastname@ and you’ll see if you can find email addresses attached to you
- Look for: FirstName LastName filetype:doc (exactly like this, without any space!) to see if you can find any Word documents that contain your name. You could also swap out the file extension with other popular file types such as jpg, xls, pdf, etc.
- If you search intex:FirstName Last Name you’ll see results showing your name anywhere in the text
You can also go to various aggregation websites, such as spokeo.com or PeekYou.com to see what they’ve compiled about you.
How To Protect Your Digital Identity
Many different methods are generally used for securing a person’s digital identity, but they fall into the following general categories:
- Data encryption: There are software tools and programs that can be used to make online data transfer more secure from hacking and other means of digital interception.
- Footprint minimalization: Reducing social media overshare and curating what someone does and says online can help to reduce the amount of tracking that can be done with them across digital networks.
- Data verification: Keeping on top of sensitive information like credit reports and medical records can help people make sure that there isn’t anyone who has gained access to their files and data illegally.
When it comes to protecting your digital footprint, keeping your data secure and maintaining your online privacy requires a multi-faceted approach.
If you only address one area of online security, you’ll be vulnerable elsewhere.
Any weak link in security results in the same security breach, no matter how secure the rest of your cybersecurity is.
Here are a few of the tools you can use to accomplish a more secure online data profile:
2-step logins: 2-step logins for secured accounts are an easy way to make it twice as hard for a person to access your data.
Online accounts that use credit card information are increasingly offering the option of a 2-step login for added security.
Virtual private networks (VPNs): Virtual private networks help ensure that personal data is safely transmitted without the chance of being intercepted by outside forces online.
Using a private VPN encrypts data to keep it hidden from hackers and other identity thieves. VPNs are commonly used in corporate digital communications.
Password manager: A password manager is a software tool that collects all of your various passwords across accounts under one difficult-to-crack password.
Password managers can be a way to keep your passwords secure without having to remember dozens of them.
External hard drive: Storing private data on an external hard drive allows users to remove that data from a network, keeping it safe from breach and theft.
Maintaining data on an external hard drive can also protect it from hardware or network failures.
For example, storing digital photographs on an external hard drive rather than Facebook helps protect their privacy.
Tips For Protecting Your Digital Footprint
Other than using data security tools and software, there are several behavioral tips that you can follow to keep your digital footprint more secure, including:
- Limit shared data: With the advent of social media, people post many unnecessary information about themselves, including their medical information and their location from day to day. This information can be used by hackers and even burglars to pinpoint vulnerabilities in your physical security, not just your online security.
- Avoid insecure networks and sites: Installing antivirus software on your computer can help put up a firewall between your network and access to websites that could potentially infect your computer with malware or other data-breaching viruses. Do not ignore warnings from your computer that a website or network is insecure—this means that your data is not safe.
- Keep software updated: One of the main ways that hackers use to find vulnerabilities in cybersecurity is to exploit weaknesses left in the system by outdated software. It is a constant cold war between hackers and antivirus software to control systems. These vulnerabilities are frequently found and fixed in post-launch software patches, but they must be installed to work.
- Stay off public networks with private data: It’s always a bad idea to log in to your personal accounts and secured networks on a public computer or network. These networks often provide no protection from the weakest outside hacking efforts. Only access your accounts on secured networks that protect your user handles and passwords.
- Verify your identity-based data reports: Keeping an eye on your medical reports and credit reports is a good way to make sure that other people aren’t trying to use your identity data behind your back. You can verify your medical records through your medical office and your credit report through a credit checking service.
- Be nice online: It’s much harder for people to find dirt on you online if you keep yourself clean. While online communications may encourage people to be more brash or belligerent than they typically would be in a face to face conversation, these words can come back to haunt you if you say something considered inappropriate, bigoted, or hypocritical in some way.
Protecting your digital footprint comes down to two major tasks: reducing your vulnerability online and guarding your data.
Both of these concepts have to be addressed to have a strong cybersecurity profile online as an individual.
Protecting Your Digital Footprint Is Vital
Even as expectations of privacy are diminished with each new generation of digital natives, online witch hunts, cyberstalkers, and hacked data leaks have become a daily occurrence in modern life.
In this online environment, protecting your digital footprint has become as important a task as any other activity you perform for personal safety.
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