Online personal data: what are the threats to our digital identity?

We live in a hyper-connected society made up of applications that simplify our lives by allowing us to shop from the comfort of our couch, order takeaway food, and manage our bank accounts. In the professional sphere, digital identity is used to access sites but also to log in to management platforms.

Yet how many people take the time to read the privacy policy of the sites and applications we use every day? Few, given that according to the Identity Theft Resource Center’s 2021 Data Breach Report, data theft is up 68 percent from the previous year. Carefully understanding how our data is handled is the first step in protecting our digital identity.

But what specifically is digital identity? The set of attributes that characterize our person, for example: date of birth, health information, address, phone number, account access credentials.

What are the threats we need to watch out for?

Personal data has a huge economic value. Big companies know it, but also computer hackers. That’s why the threats, in recent years, are multiplying and diversifying. More and more organizations, in fact, are investing in Cybersecurity. Here are those related to accounts:

• The impersonation of the user in the phase of the creation of an account: the cybercriminal clones the real data of a user while filling out their personal profile;
• Identity theft of an active account: through, for example, social engineering or baiting, in which ransom demands follow identity theft;
• Phishing: the threat arrives in the mailbox with an email sent from an account that we know but that in reality has been cloned;
• Reactivation of accounts no longer used: in this case, hackers take possession of the data of a deceased person to build a new identity (ghosting).

How can we protect our digital identity? The answer is in the full article on DeltalogiX.

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