Your digital footprints are more than a privacy risk
When you use the internet, you leave behind a trail of data, a set of digital footprints. These include your social media activities, web browsing behavior, health information, travel patterns, location maps, information about your mobile device use, photos, audio and video. This data is collected, collated, stored and analyzed by various organizations, from the big social media companies to app makers to data brokers. As you might imagine, your digital footprints put your privacy at risk, but they also affect cybersecurity.
As a cybersecurity researcher, I track the threat posed by digital footprints on cybersecurity. Hackers are able to use personal information gathered online to suss out answers to security challenge questions like “in what city did you meet your spouse?” or to hone phishing attacks by posing as a colleague or work associate. When phishing attacks are successful, they give the attackers access to networks and systems the victims are authorized to use.
Following footprints to better bait
Phishing attacks have doubled from early 2020. The success of phishing attacks depends on how authentic the contents of messages appear to the recipient. All phishing attacks require certain information about the targeted people, and this information can be obtained from their digital footprints.