Ralph, we are looking at data thefts that include our name, ID numbers, Date of Birth, residential address, gender and sometimes even more, should we really be concerned?
Of course we should be concerned. These data points are almost everything needed to commit fraud in a number of ways. We always tend to think that impact can only come from financial fraud, but imagine if you would if someone used this data to target individuals purely for the purpose of making their lives difficult. We must be aware that data can be used in ways we have yet seen the effects of in our daily lives.
Bottom line, too many people have access to your data. Identity theft is very simple because all we’re doing is throwing it in a database. If I have every single piece of information that is required for me to open a bank account, buy a car, and so on and so forth, right? Any of the financial mechanisms that exist – if it allows me to use any of those financial mechanisms, right now most of the data required for me to be you, I can answer if I have access to that database.
Your data is in so many places right now that you can’t even really fathom. So, if I hacked into these places and if I had all this data, and it really came down to the challenge of “prove you’re you,” how would you prove you’re you? Because I can even change your fingerprints – even my fingerprints in that database – and say that my name is yours. So, therein lays the problem right now. And I think that the hope is that the solution lies in blockchain.
Nowadays, it’s all about “cloud storage”, is that where our data should be?
It depends on the data. Most of the people don’t have a choice. They are using free services like Gmail, which aren’t exactly free, as they are making money on you. People are worried about the confidentiality of certain data, but most people don’t have a knowledge base to create and operate their own private servers. The term cloud is a combination of technology and virtualization. It appeared in the 1960s, but it changed over time and now it’s just a marketing term. But as I said most people don’t have a choice but to use Dropbox, Gmail or other services. If you have data that you don’t want anyone to see, you shouldn’t put it on any kind of public service.
What can people do to protect themselves?
I would say that everyone, at some point in their lives has been hacked, and they just don’t know it. It’s a matter of awareness and that’s the real problem. The majority of what we use as consumers is a matter of convenience. It creates a much more convenient world for us, and so much so that we rely on it.
Once we’ve adopted technology the way we have, we can barely remember what it was like not to have the technology. There has to be some level of situational awareness on the consumer’s side, which is a difficult thing to do because most consumers will want to run away from this issue of security.
It’s a scary issue, and even just the word “security” is one that instills a level of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. That’s really what we have to address. In fact, that’s been my passion over the last two years: to figure out how to communicate to consumers what their mobile devices are doing. It’s easy enough to block what is known to be bad, but what is more difficult is to inform the user of what they don’t really know is happening and empower them with a choice.
The motive doesn’t matter in a data breach, because you are not a person to a hacker. You are just data. By treating the protection of our data as a matter of safe, mindful behavior rather than security against criminal attacks, I believe that we stand a much better chance of resisting data breaches and hacks.
Thinking of the basics, internet browsing which we all do, is there anything we can do to be safer?
There are tools for your web browser that provide a higher level of privacy, such as using the incognito option in Chrome or Safari’s ‘private window. There are also more off-the-record browsers like the TOR browser. There is a web tool called 1.1.1.1, it does promise to increase the privacy of your web browsing while speeding up your connection. However, with the use of many of these tools, the speed or performance of your internet experience is reduced.