How do I reduce my digital footprint and protect my privacy online?
Short answer
Review the privacy settings of your social accounts, limit what you post publicly (address, travel plans, birth date), delete accounts you no longer use, and give apps only the permissions they need. Less public information makes targeted scams and account recovery attacks harder.
The details
Criminals use public details to answer security questions and to make phishing messages convincing. Where a site asks security questions, treat the answers like passwords and store random answers in your password manager.
What to do
- Set social profiles to private or friends-only.
- Remove your phone number and birth date from public profiles.
- Delete old, unused accounts.
- Review app permissions for location, contacts and microphone.
Terms explained
- Social engineering
- Social engineering is the manipulation of people, rather than technology, to gain access, information or money.
- Password manager
- A password manager is an app that generates, stores and fills unique passwords and passkeys, protected by one strong master password and usually MFA.
- Phishing
- Phishing is a fraudulent message, usually email, that impersonates a trusted sender to trick people into revealing credentials, paying money or running malware.
Sources
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