Information about you is stored throughout the internet. Some of it is information that you readily shared, and some of it is information that you didn’t even know was being collected. That data is valuable to hackers and you should protect your privacy in the online realm in whatever ways you can.
Protecting your privacy means limiting what you share online – voluntarily and involuntarily. But even if you’re being careful about what you volunteer online, you may be sharing sensitive information unintentionally.
If you are concerned about the privacy of your data, you don’t want to leave the default privacy settings in place. Those settings were created with the best interest of the company in mind which is not always the same as your best interest. Because of this, you should go into your accounts periodically and check your privacy settings.
The browser that you use stores a variety of information about your actions, preferences, and even account information. Visit the settings on your browser to make sure that you are comfortable with all of the data that is being collected and who it is being shared with. Some important browser collection settings are:
Your email provider may be saving your search history or if you’re using a private email provider like Gmail, they may be saving much more than that.
Social media accounts are a treasure trove for hackers because people freely share all kinds of personal data through status updates, pictures, and recorded milestones. But there are privacy concerns in the default settings of which you may not be aware.
If you want to do more, Stay Safe Online has a page sharing direct links to the privacy settings for a variety of applications. You can visit their page to address your privacy concerns with other applications and websites. While you’re checking your privacy settings we suggest that you go ahead and turn on Multi-Factor Authentication as we talked about in a previous blog post to secure your data even more.