‘Digital Ghost’: Do you have one?

If you have been using the Internet to make just about any online transaction, chances are, you have an active digital ghost. And you need to know what to do with it. 

Whenever you use the internet to socialize, shop, sell, send or receive payments, you leave behind a trail of relatively permanent information known as your digital footprint. It’s like your digital ghost that describes your profile and stays active long after you stopped using an app or a website or a social media channel. 

In fact, many people are unaware that they can keep their digital ghost active basically everywhere — from buying in e-commerce websites and shopping apps, using a mobile banking app and buying or selling stocks, using social media or dating apps, using a fitness tracker with the GPS turned on, and even reposting articles of a news portal.

Does it sound spooky? If your private information falls into the wrong hands, it can become scary in real life. Cybercriminals might steal and sell it in the black market and you could be the next victim of identity theft. 

Simply opening up an online account means a password has been created. Yet more than half (54%) of people surveyed by Kaspersky said they don’t know how to check if their passwords have been leaked. This is alarming considering that data breach is one of the common ways that data theft can occur.

To protect your privacy online, Kaspersky recommends doing the following:

1. Use search engines to check. Enter your name into search engines, both first and last names. If any of the results show you in a negative light, contact the site administrator to see if they can remove it. You can also set up Google Alerts to keep an eye on your name.  
2. Double check your privacy settings and avoid oversharing on social media. Avoid disclosing your phone number or email address in your social media bio. It’s also a good idea to avoid ‘liking” your own bank, healthcare provider, pharmacy, etc. as this can lead cybercriminals to your critical accounts. 
3. Avoid unsafe websites. Transact only with secure websites — ones that has a security certificate (a clue is when a URL begins with https:// rather than http://) and has a padlock icon to the left of the address bar.
4. Be wary about using public wifi. Only send personal information when you’re using a secure, private connection because you don’t know who set up the public wifi network or who else might be watching. 
5. Delete old accounts. Get rid of dormant accounts to minimize your exposure to potential data breaches. 
6. Create strong passwords and use a password manager. The more complex your password is, the harder it is to crack. Use long passwords with at least 12 characters, a mix of upper and lower case letters plus symbols and numbers. Try to avoid using the same password for all your accounts and change them regularly. 
7. Update your software. Cybercriminals can easily access a victim’s device and data by exploiting vulnerabilities in an outdated software. 
8. Make use of software with a strong privacy protection feature. Kaspersky Total Security has Private Browsing that stops a website from tracking your activities and collecting your data. It also has Anti-Phishing to protect you from fake websites that can try to steal your identity. The latest version of Kaspersky Total Security (KTS) has also been enhanced to detect the latest and most sophisticated phishing scams.  

For the whole month of November, Filipino customers can enjoy up to 50% discount on Kaspersky solutions available here.

The post ‘Digital Ghost’: Do you have one? appeared first on Speed Magazine.

‘Digital Ghost’: Do you have one?
Source: Showbiz Hollywood News