By Robin Howard
Online privacy is the right to keep online personal information—or pieces of data that could lead to your identity—private. Private information includes bank accounts, credit card numbers, email addresses, contacts, and your address and phone number.
It also includes information that does not necessarily seem valuable to criminals, such as where you work, where your children go to school, and the full names of your family, co-workers or friends.
What Hackers Can Do With Your Data
Without privacy, anyone with your information can impersonate, exploit or steal from you. Keeping your data private online also protects you from offline dangers such as theft, harassment and extortion.
Some attacks are highly personalized. You may get a text or email referring to a friend, co-worker, neighbor or organization you are involved with asking for help, which usually involves money. Cybercriminals are
particularly good at crafting these messages, so they seem authentic, which is why so many people are victimized.
If a hacker has your email address and password, they can use it to attempt to access your bank accounts and credit cards or send targeted scam emails to your contacts.
Hackers can also take your accounts or personal data hostage and attempt to charge you a fee to get them back. Protecting your data means protecting your finances, peace of mind and the people you care about.
Most of us have weak spots in our online privacy, but even minor privacy issues can add up. People with bad intentions can collect information about you and put it together to form a larger picture. It takes a little time and effort, but making slight changes to protect yourself can make all the difference.
What’s Your Weakness?
Passwords
The most common flaw is weak passwords. Despite all the advice to use strong passwords, a cyber research company found that “123456” and “password” were among the most used—and hacked—passwords last year. Other easily hackable passwords include famil- iar words or phrases, pet and celebrity names, and birthdates.
Reusing passwords on multiple websites allows cybercriminals to break into more than one account at once, making you vulnerable to identity theft.
Oversharing
Think twice about what information and photos you share on social media. For example, if you post videos of your home, you are giving thieves a map of your valuables. Posting while you are on vacation lets people know you are not home.
Posting pictures of your children along with their names and information such as where they go to school, could make them vulnerable to stalkers.
Every post you make tells people with bad inten- tions more about you, your habits, what you own and who is important to you.
Too Many Apps and Internet-Connected Things
Apps and internet-connected devices that listen are constantly collecting data about you, including your shopping habits, upcoming life events and even health data. This information is highly valuable to criminals and marketers.
Unsecure Browsers
Unsecured web browsers do not have security mea- sures to protect you from unauthorized data collection while browsing the web. These browsers allow web- sites to track you and gather information. Criminals can access this information via malicious extensions, ads and links to fake websites.
It is not just scammers who want this information. Companies can also use this data to build a profile of you and develop highly effective targeted marketing ads.
Improve Online Privacy
Protecting your online data means knowing what cybercriminals want and how they access it. When it comes to personal attacks, criminals always go for easy targets.
A few minor fixes will make your accounts unattractive because they will be too hard to hack.
Use Strong Passwords
A strong password is at least 12 random numbers, characters and symbols. Use a password manager such as iCloud Keychain or 1Password to generate and store strong passwords. As you are changing passwords, set up two-factor authentication for every account that offers it. When you login to an account, you will get a second way to verify your identity, such as a text code.
Protect Your Devices
Most free apps make money by selling your data,
so delete old apps and anything you do not need. Browser extensions can be code that tracks all your browser activity and can even collect financial and medical data. Delete or limit browser extensions that do things such as block ads, spell check or customize how your browser looks.
Speaking of browsers, use a privacy-first browser such as Safari or Firefox. If you use Google, go to the MyActivity dashboard and delete everything.
Since you have the hood open, set your operating system on all devices to automatically install updates. Most hacks take advantage of known flaws in software. If you use Windows, install antivirus software. Apple’s operating system has sufficient antivirus built in.
Finally, disable message previews on your phone’s lock screen. They can be used to access your two-step authentication codes.
Be Careful on Social Media
The golden rule for social media is not to post any- thing you would not want strangers to know, includ- ing that you are on vacation, where you live, and full names or details about people close to you. Be picky about what you like, share and comment on. These interactions can appear in public searches, even if the account is private.
For messaging, use an encrypted app such as WhatsApp. Facebook Messenger does not have enough security to prevent third parties from reading messages.
Only connect with people you know in real life, don’t respond to unsolicited messages on social media from people you don’t know, and don’t click links in direct messages or news feeds.
Check Your Settings
Privacy rules and settings change all the time. Every few months, review the privacy settings on your accounts. Turn off automatic geolocation on social media, restaurant reservation apps and shopping sites. Disable data tracking by clicking “ask app not to track” when you get a pop-up.
Your habits, patterns, information and relationships are valuable information to cybercriminals. Good online privacy habits ensure you stay in control of what is yours.