Buying clothes in the morning, trying on the purchased clothes without leaving the house that night, improving your fitness level with training with real-time monitoring of vital signs, working remotely – these are just tastes connected to the network the world offered countless opportunities. Many Internet users are also happy to use social networking sites, messaging services and other platforms for distance communication, whether for business or pleasure.

However, careless sharing of information on the Internet can have harmful consequences: for many people to see comments, photos, or other personal content, they usually get enough attention – just unfortunately not always the attention they want. What’s more, information is spreading at an amazing speed on the internet compared to the physical world, and once we post something on the net, it’s almost impossible to remove it anymore. Taking appropriate measures to protect personal data should therefore be made an integral part of any online presence.

According to a Kaspersky study, security awareness when using online services is still too low: on a daily average, Y-generations They spend 7 hours online, yet only 36% of them are aware that they should improve their security skills. 37% of them think they are too boring to fall victim to cybercrime.

This can be a huge mistake, especially in light of how cheaply sensitive data is sold on black websites, which is further evidence of cybercrime. prevalence. For the sake of example only, medical findings can range from $ 1 to $ 30 and scanned passports can range from $ 6 to $ 15. However, the misuse of sensitive information is only one of the dangers that can have real-life consequences for Internet users. Doxing, that is, publicly deanonizing a person on the Internet, can also have dire consequences, as this example shows: following the publication of certain private information, a journalist from the American music magazine Pitchfork received a number of threats on Twitter. Commentators also did not shy away from suggestions to “burn your house to dust.” It started out that fans of Taylor Swift didn’t like a critique of the singer’s latest album – not positive enough – so they published the author’s phone number and address.

Maybe such an incident could be extreme. it seems that doxing is not only a threat to members of certain professions, such as journalists or sex workers, in the form of the disclosure of private information; doxing also jeopardizes the relationships of all victims with their relatives and friends, as well as their careers. Attackers intentionally cause harm by selectively disclosing personal information, that is, by disclosing embarrassing information, for example. As employers or potential employees now often try to check the reputation of employees and candidates by researching on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, the disclosure of some sensitive information may result in a deterioration in social perception or a loss of financial security

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In light of all this, Vladislav Tuskanov, privacy expert at Kaspersky, suggests that we improve our security awareness and treat our personal information with great care on the Internet: “The Internet is a wonderful place that has given us unprecedented opportunities to express our individuality. As with everything else, we need to take a responsible approach.When managing online privacy and keeping the information about us on the Internet under control, we need to follow two main principles: we need to know what we know about us, and we need to remove everything we can. available to users to order to regain the right to privacy, or to exercise at least some degree of control over the information they share now or in the past. So let’s take advantage of these tools. “

Here are Kaspersky’s suggestions on how to avoid misuse of our data and how to make our online self-expression more secure:

• Guglizz on yourself If you know what information is publicly available about you, you will soon have a clearer picture of what they can use against you.If there are not many results for your name, you can sign up for Google alerts to see if something pops up about you anywhere on the web.
• Try so-called person-search engines that can use background web data or government records to check people’s background Posting this type of information online may be illegal depending on your country, so the availability of such websites may not be the same in all jurisdictions
• Review your posts on social networking sites: check them geotags of places you frequently stay, such as your apartment or office, or photos that may reveal their location. Check your privacy settings and use the option to hide older posts that contain sensitive information, such as the names of your relatives.
• Use solutions that prevent applications may track your devices unnecessarily.
• If you believe that information about you on the Internet may be used against you, try to get rid of it. For social networks, this is relatively easy: either remove your posts containing private information or make your profile private.
• Keep in mind that in addition to social networks, many other applications there is a community component that can reveal information about you, from what language you are learning to the level of your sexual activity. Pay close attention to applications that record geographic data, such as fitness tracking applications. Make sure your account open in such apps is private.
• Assess what services you use or have used, such as online stores, various social media apps, login apps , etc. If you no longer use them or do not want information about you from these apps to appear anywhere, ask these organizations to delete your information. Or, see if the website has a complaint or request to remove information form and use it. If not, contact the clerks directly. If your jurisdiction has strict data protection laws (such as the GDPR or CCPA), it is easier for your service provider to simply remove your data than to risk imposing huge fines on regulators

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• If certain information cannot be removed from the source, you can use the so-called “right to forget” to instruct the search engine to remove links to websites containing your private information from the search results. Whether you can do this depends on the search engine and jurisdiction.

About doxing and how to keep your personal information safe, Securelist you can read more on the website. For more information on how Kaspersky products can help keep your data secure, visit our website

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