Your online data is valuable. In fact, what you do online has become an industry. Meta, Instagram, Pinterest and countless other platforms are tracking your activity, clicks, shares and likes. Your profiles and preferences are not truly your own. And of course we have a ton of “private” information that we store and use online that is supposedly “secure.” That’s another pile of your data that is extremely valuable… and attractive to scammers, hackers and other cyber-criminals.
So, how do we hold our ground and fight back? How do we prevent these players from taking advantage of our data, misusing it, losing it, stealing it and selling it?
It’s an increasingly important question in our uber-connected world: how do I secure my privacy online? That’s why we should all have an understanding of digital security and online privacy.
Search Yourself
Have you ever typed your name in Google? Go try it!
Your full name, age, address, birth date, spouse’s name, and phone number may all be displayed depending on the sites. Your name might be linked to your spouse’s ex-partner. Your kid’s names might show up. Perhaps pictures from that trip to Jamaica? And in some situations, even your social security number might be included.
But, for those few in the know, it’s a different story. Their address won’t be available online. Nor their family member’s names. Or phone numbers, or anything that identifies them. These folks take privacy seriously. And they understand the ways to secure their privacy and ensure that none of that personal, confidential information is easily accessible.
And this doesn’t mean they have changed their religion, or cut themselves off from society, thrown away their smart phone and laptops, and disconnected. No, it can be possible to have a flourishing digital life and still secure your privacy.
So, how do you secure your privacy? How do you ensure your identity, your activity, your data is not compromised?
I’m going to walk through the security and privacy issues across several areas of our digital lives. Each area will be in a separate article. You can find them listed at the end of this article. But first, we should consider the type of threats and some of terms often used surrounding the idea of privacy and security.
Privacy, Anonymity & Security
In recent years, the terms privacy, anonymity and security have become buzzwords as hacks and leaks have emerged and been reported. People are more concerned about what is happening to their data… their digital assets. The photos, emails, the banking information.
It’s important to understand what these terms mean:
Privacy
Privacy is the idea that nobody sees what you’re doing. What you do and eat in your own home is private. In most situations, your friends and relatives already know you reside there. Therefore, your location is known to them but your behaviour remains private. In the digital world, things are no different. For example, you send an encrypted email to your buddy. He recognizes the sender because he has your email address, but since both of you use encryption, the message contents are more secure than if they were shared between two Gmail accounts.
Anonymity
Anonymity is the idea that no one knows who you are, despite the fact that others may be able to observe your actions. What you do is not connected to your real identity. Spies, could then be considered anonymous. Online trolls that stalk and rant but do it under a fake name could be considered anonymous.
Security
The infrastructure that protects your privacy and/or anonymity is called security. Google has great security infrastructure, so it is difficult to hack into their system. However, they’re not exactly known for supporting or protecting your privacy and/or anonymity.
Who Wants My Stuff?
Who wants your stuff? Well, firstly, it depends on your individual circumstances, who you are and what your stuff is. But beyond that, there is the question of passive and aggressive threats to your assets.
Passive Threats
A passive threat typically means that you are not the target yourself. Instead, your data is captured by a wide net that attackers have used to target larger repositories of data and unfortunately, some of your assets happen to be in there. You are part of the by-catch as they say in the fishing industry. You may not be the target fish, but you are still scooped up in the same net.
Aggressive Threats
An aggressive attack on the other hand is where someone specifically targets your assets. For example, this could be a scorned lover, an angry colleague or if your position or perhaps political leanings warrant, even a governmental intrusion of your stuff. The aggressive attackers are the more persistent and highly motivated to access your data.
What Affects Me Most?
For most of us, the biggest threats are passive ones, where spyware, key loggers, viruses and phishing techniques are used to capture anyone who isn’t protected or aware of what they are doing online. The active, aggressive threats will largely depend on a person’s unique circumstances. Measures to counteract these aggressive threats will be a lot more involved, refined, specific and of course require more resources in both time, money and expertise.
Passive threats are pervasive. These are the threats I will focus on, sharing advice and available tools.
Secure Your Home
One helpful way to approach security and privacy is by allowing fewer people to have the keys to your digital “house.”
I absolutely love technology and use it for all kinds of things in my life, especially making my business more efficient. And of course, there’s plenty of great streaming services out there that allow convenient viewing and listening, pausing and resuming of your favourite shows, music, podcasts and movies. Technology is everywhere, but we would be wise to make sure who we are giving the keys to our digital home to.
In exchange for the convenience and entertainment that tech provides, we often give up major chunks of privacy. There are patents out there, filed by tech companies that allow the microphone on your device to record constantly and interpret the speech, age, sex and even emotional state of it’s subscribers. And that’s just one example. And yet we give apps and services like this the key to our “homes” allowing them to invade our privacy. The voice-activated devices we have welcomed as the newest, most well-behaved member of our households? Maybe you need to reconsider.
Dig Under The Hood
Many people think that the convenience and features of these apps and services are worth the risk. However, as the saying goes, “give them an inch, and they’ll take a mile.” So take a look at what terms and conditions you are accepting when subscribing.
Below is a list of upcoming articles in this series:
- Securing Your Digital “Home” From Malware Bugs
- Securing Your Passwords
- Securing Your “Things” (IoT)
- Securing Your Communications
- Securing Your Digital Transactions & Payments
- Securing Your Stuff Through Back Ups
- Securing Your Stuff Through Encryption
- Securing Your Phone’s Privacy
Some Helpful Tools
Have you ever been hacked? Want to check? Use https://haveibeenpwned.com to check if your email address has ever been sold. Another service you can use is pcloud. If you are visiting a site and you have some suspicions about it’s authenticity, enter the name here to see if it’s an safe one. And if hackers do take your data hostage and you need help accessing it, try The No More Ransom Project