What is the theft of digital identity and how to protect your data on the Internet

Someone did collect data on the Internet for me?

Yes, with almost any. User information (photo, name, date of birth, residential address, telephone number) is taking a majority of Internet services. It is from this information and develops your digital portrait.

Detailed data about you, your interests and preferences collected by social networks and search engines. In addition, special trackers monitoryaschie your web surfing history, embedded in the websites of many e-mail services, shops, applications. In general, if you are an active Internet user, to escape from it will not work.

What's bad about it?

Such information can be collected for marketing purposes. Companies are willing to pay big money for the portrait of the customers to more effectively market their services. More than the portrait, the more expensive it is.

Such trade data could be, and unpleasant, but not against the law. Most often, it resorted to insurance companies or banks to know whether they face non-payment of the loan or the high costs of health insurance coverage.

Much more dangerous, if this information falls into the hands scam. For example, they can steal it or buy one of the underground forums. Unfortunately, the massive leak of user data now occur quite regularly. And it is not immune to this, not only little online shopping, but also giants like Yahoo! or Facebook. The latest in a series of incidents was the leakage of data on plastic cards largest airline customers Delta and retailer Sears.

What exactly will happen?

There are many ways to misuse of personal data. For example, spammers and phishers can use your first and last name when sending messages. As shown by the sad experience, personalized mailing, in which attackers are turning to the victim by name, work is much more efficient and impersonal mass.

Sometimes, criminals prey and for a specific person. To target phishing load, they need to get as much information as possible about the user. For example, if he sells the car right now, he is going abroad, there has recently been in some restaurant - all this can It is used to produce highly plausible fraudulent messages to the victim precisely caught hook.

What about digital identity theft and leakage of biometric data?

Increasingly gaining momentum threatening theft of user digital identity entirely. By itself, this phenomenon is not new. phishing web page in social networks appeared simultaneously with the social networks themselves. Using the data of the victim, attackers can create a fake page and write on her behalf obscenity, registered on questionable sites.

Today, however, this threat is a new development.

Even without special knowledge can now mount the video content is not the most pleasant, where in the main roles will you or your friends.

Of course, if you have at least a dozen or so pictures on the Internet. Most likely there will.

The recent history with Deepfakes - this is only the beginning. Over time, these technologies will only improve. If today is a fake video with celebrities is quite possible to distinguish from the real, in the near future we may well expect a true "masterpieces", which can be recognized only by using special techniques. The same applies to the voice data: today there business solutions to imitate the voice of strangers.

Separate risk, which becomes more and more real, - the leakage of biometric data. Face, voice or fingerprint in the near future may become a universal means of authorization. Recently, its facial recognition system launched three major social networks operating in Russia. Theft biometrics opens scammers really great opportunity. In this case, the face or fingers, unlike a password, you can change not.

How to protect your data?

Do not share a lot of information

Especially in open areas. Although there were some cases where pictures of people flowed from closed publications. Your every action leaves a digital footprint on the web. In many cases, there is nothing we can do about it, if not to resort to a radical rejection of the technology. But to a certain extent, this can be controlled.

Update your privacy settings on social networks

Restrict access of strangers to the information that you would not want to see in the wrong hands. On some sites, enough to put one or two ticks. Flexible settings suggest that different parameters can be set even for different photo albums. So be careful.

If you find yourself somewhere in your data, do not panic

If this is not a dead life, you can always contact the property directly and ask to be removed. As a rule, in most cases, this happens quite quickly.

Limit application access to personal information

Your data can get into the base, even if you are using a touch-tone telephone, and Internet connection only on holidays. Remember GetContact? Some applications during the installation have access to the contact list. Thus careless user merges not only their data, but also the contacts of friends. With this, too, can be controlled. In Facebook, for example, there is a special setting that allows you to select access to what information is open to applications in such cases.

Be careful with all links, which go

Data collectors are waiting for the most unexpected places. For example, in popular benchmarks such as "What do you fruit?" Or "What would you have been in Victorian England?". We do not want to upset anyone, but often the main goal of such tests - does not help users learn more about themselves and marketers to resell or swindlers your digital portrait. A striking example is the recent story with Cambridge Analytica. Before giving applications access to your profile, think about whether you need it.

Protect your biometric data

Very often they are going without your knowledge, and not only on the Internet. For example, one of the sources are surveillance cameras. But some of the measures taken is still possible. In the same Facebook facial recognition can be switched off at all. At least as long as there is no certainty that the data is stored securely. In addition, the social media with photos in which you've been tagged, you can delete the corresponding notes.

The less of your data on the Internet, the less the risk of losing your digital identity.

When interacting with the modern online technologies hundred times better to double-check everything, than to fight back against spammers, or to seek out their own clones online.

see also

• How to become a guru cybersecurity →
• 13 ways to protect your account from hacking →
• 4 special browser for anonymous surfing →