Securing Your Online Presence
We all use social media in our day to day to stay connected personally and professionally. According to the Pew Research Center, 69% of American people who frequent the internet, use some sort of social media platform. A great number of these people are employers or recruiters searching for potential candidates in their industry, many target students like myself. Lamentably, these aren’t the only people targeting students. The information we share on social media is the same information most attackers exploit in phishing scams and can leave us susceptible to identity theft. It is imperative for anyone using the internet to educate themselves on proper techniques to protect their online identity.
Let’s face it, the internet can be great to share that sweet selfie, but it can also be a haven for really bad people trying to do some really illicit things. Identity theft is considered one of the fastest-growing crimes globally. Experts report that every year cybercriminals rake in billions of dollars in shady transactions. Going online already comes at the cost of some of your privacy. Why give it all away?
The three tenants of digital computer network security are confidentiality, integrity, and availability. Affectionally, these three are often referred to by their initials, CIA. The following is a discussion of each tenant followed by some examples of how to implement each one to securing your digital footprint. Remember, what happens on the internet tends to last a lifetime, so it never hurts to be a little cautious.
Confidentiality
Confidentiality means protecting your online information from being accessed by unwanted third parties. This means that only the people you know and authorize are the ones accessing your data. A simple way to be confidential while using the internet is to understand your privacy settings on any social media networks you frequent and adjust them precisely so that they match your comfort level. This may mean limiting or completely disabling location tagging on photos or videos you share of yourself online with everybody. Or, limiting the places you “check-into” since these can be used to identify you in a vulnerable location. A person who truly understands their privacy settings should be able to identify who can access the information they are posting online, who controls it, who owns it, and what is being shared through third parties. Lastly, to ensure your confidentiality isn’t breached, make sure to update passwords regularly using complex unique passwords. Some people have benefitted by using a password manager like 1Password or LastPass. In addition to using strong passwords, whenever possible enroll in multi-factor authentication (MFA). We will discuss later, why multi-factor authentification is important and how it can benefit you even if your secure password is compromised.
Integrity
Integrity means that the information you are sharing is not altered in any way by an unknown entity. An example of this attack in action would be a malicious attacker redirecting your online traffic through their own servers before redirecting you to your desired website. The best defense for this attack is not joining any open networks that may be intercepting your connection. Some people opt to use a Virtual Private Network when connecting to an open network, which may help, but if you do opt to use a VPN, understand that all Virtual Private Networks really do is route your data somewhere else. In short, a Virtual Private Network will shift who can see your data from your Internet Service Provider to your Virtual Private Network provider, not really guaranteeing anonymity, privacy, or security if your provider is up to no good. Another way to protect yourself is to ensure you only visit websites you know. This means being extra cautious of emails that may seem familiar and in the clear but are actually malicious. All websites or web services that value your data’s privacy opt to secure their services through the Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure or HTTPS, which provides military-grade encryption using the Advanced Encryption Scheme thus guaranteeing integrity. If you are visiting a bank or a government agency’s website or any website with sensitive information, ensure the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is prefixed with ‘https’ before continuing.
Availability
Availability refers to the information a user wants to access and whether it is available or not. An attacker may challenge availability by executing a denial of service attack that disables users from accessing their data. In the case of a person securing their online presence, their focus should lie on maintaining their personal information private. Most often than not, it is unnecessary to share sensitive data like your date of birth, mailing address, email address, mother’s maiden name, sexual orientation, or Social Security number. If you require to answer a security question with what you would consider being sensitive data, it would be advisable to create alternative answers to those questions that are private to yourself. Avoid joining online groups where you’re unfamiliar with some members in it or the causes they support. Limit the availability of your data whenever possible by limiting who has access to your data. An example of limiting availability through the use of confidentiality would be enabling multi-factor authentication. By using multi-factor authentication, you add an extra layer of security in case someone is able to access your secure password since, without any additional credentials for an intruder to verify it is really you, they are unable to access your sensitive data. This means that even if all else fails and you’ve been phished, you can rest knowing your private data is still private. Lastly, review your history. Ensure no compromising photos or posts of yourself are public to everyone, perhaps some spring cleaning may be in order.
In conclusion
Securing your online presence can seem like a colossal task, but I assure you it is worth it. Just to highlight the importance of online security, consider the people who lost their homes from falling victims to a phishing scam. Or the biggest bank robbery in history that made out with over 1 billion dollars that took place entirely online. If you value your self-worth and your privacy then take the time to secure your online presence.