Tech is always changing, and so is the way we use it. That means
we are always finding new ways to let our guard down for bad actors to snoop on
our data.
اضافة اعلان
Remember when you shared your address book with that trendy new
app? Or when you posted photos on social networks? Those actions may all pose
consequences that weaken security for ourselves and the people we care about.
Vijay Balasubramaniyan, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of
Pindrop, a security firm that develops technology to detect fraudulent phone
calls, said we should always remember that any piece of our identity we post
online could eventually be used by fraudsters to hijack our online accounts.
“Your digital identity, which comprises all your pictures,
videos and audio, is going to fundamentally allow hackers to create a complete
persona of you that looks exactly like you, without you being in the picture,”
he said.
So here are some of the most important guidelines — such as
strengthening passwords and minimizing the data shared by your phone camera —
to keep you and your loved ones safe for the foreseeable future. I refer to
these as the five tech commandments in the hope that you will remember them as
if they were gospel.
Do not use weak passwords
Let’s talk about bad password hygiene. About 45 percent of
Americans use weak passwords that are eight characters or fewer, according to a
survey by Security.org, a research firm. (Fourteen percent used “COVID” in
their passwords last year.) The majority of Americans also acknowledged reusing
passwords across different sites.
This opens doors to many security issues. Weak passwords can be
easily guessed by hijackers trying to gain access to your account. And if you
use the same password for multiple sites, such as your banking account, Target
shopping account and Facebook, then all it takes is for one of those sites to
be hacked to make all those accounts vulnerable.
For most people, the simplest solution is a password manager,
software that helps automatically generate long, complex passwords for
accounts. All the passwords are stored in a vault that is accessible with one
master password. My favorite tool is 1Password, which costs $36 a year, but
there are also free password managers such as Bitwarden.
The other option is to jot down passwords on a piece of paper
that is stored in a safe place. Just make sure the passwords are long and
complex, with some letters, numbers and special characters.
Use multifactor authentication
No matter how strong you make a password, hackers can still get
it if they breach a company’s servers containing your information. That’s why
security experts recommend multifactor authentication, also known as two-step
verification.
Here’s how two-factor authentication has generally worked: Say,
for instance, you enter your user name and password for your online bank
account. That’s Step 1. The bank then sends a text message to your phone with a
temporary code that must be punched in before the site lets you log in. That’s
Step 2. In this way, you prove your identity by having access to your phone and
that code.
Do not overshare
Many of us rely on our smartphones for our everyday cameras. But
our smartphones collect lots of data about us, and camera software can
automatically make a note of our location when we snap a photo. This is more
often a potential safety risk than a benefit.
Let’s start with the positives. When you allow your camera to
tag your location, photo-management apps such as Apple’s Photos and Google
Photos can automatically sort pictures into albums based on location. That’s
helpful when you go on vacation and want to remember where you were when you
took a snapshot.
But when you aren’t traveling, having your location tagged on
photos is not great. Let’s say you just connected with someone on a dating app
and texted a photo of your dog. If you had the location feature turned on when
you snapped the photo, that person could analyze the data to see where you
live.
Just to be safe, make sure the photo location feature is off by
default:
— On iPhones, open the Settings app, select Privacy, then
Location Services and, finally, Camera. Under “Allow Location Access,” choose “Never.”
— On Androids, inside the Camera app tap the Settings icon that
looks like a gear cog. Scroll to Tag Locations and switch the toggle to the off
position.
Do not share data about friends
This is a lesson we have to learn again and again: It’s generally
not a good idea to give away information about your friends when using websites
and apps, especially with unknown brands.
When you share your address book with an app, for example, you
are potentially providing the names, phone numbers, home addresses and email
information of all your contacts to that company. When you share your address
book with an app to invite others to join, you are giving away others’
information even if they choose not to accept the invite.
Typically, when you share your address book with an app, it’s
for the purpose of finding other friends who are also using a service. But
Clubhouse, a social networking app that has become popular during the pandemic,
was recently criticized over its aggressive collection of address books.
When signing up for Clubhouse, users could decline to share
their address book. But even if they did so, others on the app who had uploaded
their address books could see that those new users had joined the service. This
wasn’t ideal for people trying to avoid contact with abusive exes or stalkers.
Remember to stay skeptical
All security experts agreed on one rule of thumb: Trust no one.
When you receive an email from someone asking for your personal
information, don’t click on any links and contact the sender to ask if the
message is legitimate. Fraudsters can easily embed emails with malware and
impersonate your bank, said Adam Kujawa, a director of the security firm
Malwarebytes.
When in doubt, opt out of sharing data. Businesses and banks
have experimented with fraud-detection technologies that listen to your voice
to verify your identity. At some point, you may even interact with
customer-service representatives on video calls. The most sophisticated
fraudsters could eventually use the media you post online to create a deepfake,
or a computer-generated video or audio clip impersonating you, Balasubramaniyan
said.
While this could sound alarmist — because deepfakes are not an
immediate concern — a healthy dose of skepticism will help us survive the
future.
“Think about all the different ways in which you’re leaving
biometric identity in your online world,” he said.
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