Worldwide, more than three billion people connect to the internet every day, and that number grows by almost 10% each year. The possible applications on the internet are innumerable, from leisure to business, from work to entertainment. However, in the new era of communication and information, the internet has become the hunting ground for a new group of thieves; cybercriminals.
These hackers take advantage of security holes in the network to obtain valuable information from unaware users. When browsing the internet, each time we visit a web page, we leave a trace when we deliver our information to the owner of the said web page. The set of all the information that we leave on our way through the internet is the digital footprint.
How do third parties use my fingerprint information?
It’s not just hackers that come into play here. Even product sales companies are interested in having as much data as possible about potential customers. When it comes to showing advertising (prevailing throughout the internet), companies prefer to show you ads for products that may interest you according to the profile they have developed about you related to the information obtained. Sex, age, location, search history, purchase history – for these companies, all information, ridiculous as it may seem, is essential and relevant.
This information, on many occasions, we do not even have to provide to the companies in question. The usual thing is that they obtain this information through cookies, a chain of digits “anchored” to our browser that remembers all the data that we provide, to be added automatically in the future. It may seem that it is a function only to add facilities and comforts to the client, but the truth is that through these cookies, a huge amount of information is obtained that a regular user has no idea what he is giving.
It does not seem so bad to see the ads that may interest me…
It may seem attractive to see only adverts of products that a very complex algorithm has chosen for you based on your interests and past purchase decisions. However, these companies also use these systems to get the best possible performance from their products. Charge you more, speaking clearly. All this vast new information is processed and analyzed with a new series of complex statistical techniques in the field of Big data, and the results are astonishing.
And if evil multinationals don’t scare you enough, there’s always the dark side of the internet. Data leaks, hackers stealing information to take over your bank account, or identity theft are the order of the day. It is imperative to protect yourself from these threats by taking care of your digital fingerprint. For example, let’s say you register on any web page. You fill in all the fields, just like you fill in all the other web pages where you register. You even use the same password as everywhere… One day, this website has a security breach in its database, and your data is leaked. Who would be interested? But in fact, that’s when cybercriminals get your bank details by knowing your name, address, and password (which perhaps also happens to be the same as your email account where you keep much more information). On many occasions, these criminals find a profile to exploit and unleash their criminal skills to carry out all kinds of actions, such as impersonating your identity, extortion, theft, and much more.
To avoid such trouble, be careful about where you register, the information that you leave online, if your network is open, how you have configured our router, the passwords that you use, etc. Read here to find elite backup protection to prevent these dangers and save your data copied to a secure location, even in a case of major data loss. The world changes every day, and new technologies have made their way to the top. Take care, and enjoy your privacy safely.
