Put On Your Internet Armor
If we move up to the “adult” table
the news is really grim. A breach
perpetrated against business and
consumer data brokerage firm Exactis
stole information connected to 340
million people. A whopping 500 mil-
lion people — roughly one-fifteenth of
the entire global population — were
victimized by the Marriott Starwood
Hotels data breach. Though often ig-
nored due to complacency, the danger
of doing just about anything online is
real.
As consumers, there is little we
can do about the cybersecurity that
organizations have in place to protect
our information. We place our trust
in them to be ethical stewards and
provide the best security available
— not just check the “basic” security
boxes and then take out cybersecurity
insurance.
Unfortunately, we must also grudg-
ingly accept that no security is perfect
and that, despite even robust and
seemingly thoroughgoing good faith
efforts, breaches will occur. After all,
there were by some estimates nearly
1 billion global victims of cybercrime
last year. Are you a citizen of the
world? There a slightly better than
one-in-seven chance you got dinged.
Don’t stand out so much
While we can’t control the cyber-
security practices of organizations we
deal with, there are many things that
the average person can do to lessen
their vulnerability to cybercrime.
No amount of personal caution will
entirely protect you, but good cyberse-
curity hygiene is at worst a deterrent
and at best could keep you entirely
out of the next big breach story to hit
the evening news.
To begin with, each of us needs to
lessen our “footprint” in the world
of technology. For example, you can
start by eliminating unnecessary credit
cards and store charge accounts. The
more accounts you have open, the
more vulnerable you are to cyber-
attackers. Sure, it’s tempting to take
advantage of that 5 percent discount
at checkout by signing up for a new
credit card or rewards program, but
that only makes you a bigger target.
The point is to lessen your vulnerabili-
ty, not increase it.
When you fill out a form some-
where, question the need to supply
personal information such as your so-
cial security number — does your new
dentist really need that information?
Whenever you have the option to
NOT supply an e-mail address, phone
number, and so forth, leave that extra
information off the form.
Decrease your social media profile.
Miscreants and malefactors constantly
troll social media to gather informa-
tion, so refrain from telling the world
about your purchasing habits, your
travel plans, your personal likes and
dislikes, and especially your personal-
ly identifying information (PII) — any
information that uniquely identifies
you.As we contentedly
go about the daily usage
of our devices, we gen-
erally give scant thought
to the dangers that often
lurk beneath the friend-
ly and accommodating
surface of the Internet.