Data Protection In A Busy Smart World; A Growing Concern

17.09.2022 LISTEN

Data protection is a growing concern among governments and corporations in this 21st Century

Billions of people and devices are connected to the internet across the globe

It is undoubtedly Data is the next gold and individuals and cooperations will go any extent to get it for various reasons, some being for target marketing purposes, predicting of the future through Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) etc

The bad guys also do their own stuff with data like selling to wrong people, cybercrime etc

Data in the hands of the next person exposes us to a lot of risk and thus the need to ensure what we put out especially in this internet driven world must be of a concern to us!

The former Chief Information Director of twitter recently in a hearing spoke at length how twitter is not ensuring proper data protection of its millions of users

Social Engineering is possible once someone gets enough details (data) about us and capitalize on it to get what they want

As a matter of fact we cannot exclude ourselves from this smart world of Internet of Things (IoT) but we can well manage what we put out for the world to know about us

In a recent news over thousands of login details of personal emails of people were hacked and imagine you store sensitive data like your credit card details, social security numbers and other private records in your inbox then you are doomed

Governments have harnessed on the need for proper data protection by these giant IT Corporations like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc but honestly they can do what is within their might but the onus lies on us Users to ensure what we put out there is safe for public consumption because data can be leaked by embittered data administrators, bug in systems can expose one’s data into the wrong hands and so on and so forth

Basic steps to ensure safety

1. When using public networks at the airport, hotels, restaurants etc make sure your network sharing options are off or set to private

2. When using public computers to access your emails or social pages never check on the box that says ‘keep me logged in’

3. Ensure you don’t give your pin or password to people you even trust, if you want them to help you on your device keep an eye on them

4. Never click on links in emails or messages you doubt

5. Never enter sensitive information on websites that don’t use secure socket layer (ssl) in the domain names that is http without an (s)

6. Ensure you set a second layer authentication like 2-Factor Auth on your emails or social pages

7. Watch out for cloned websites before you enter your login details as some people create subdomain clones of legit websites to trick users

8. Keep update antivirus or anti malware software on your devices

9. If you feel your account has been compromised change your password or pin ASAP

10. Never use one password for all your accounts

11. Never use your phone number or date of birth as your pin or password as they can be guessed easily

12. When you buy a router from the telcos ensure the default username and password is changed

As I conclude I will quote a line in IT Security that states, the only system that can be deemed as safe is the one that is offline