Protecting your personal data online seems like an almost impossible task. There are so many places that our data live, and it’s difficult to know where to start when it comes to making it safe. This week I’ve spent some time thinking about all the places I house my data and ways that I can make it more secure. I really have never thought about this before and was slightly taken back by the lack of protection I currently have. Sure, I have fancy passwords with letters, numbers, and special characters, but beyond that I’ve been acting pretty fast and loose with my data’s security.
Now that I have been able to see this issue, I can start working on fixing it. The first step is identifying where my information is. There are probably hundreds of websites with some type of data from me, and the idea of trying to track them all down seemed daunting. I decided then to first look at a smaller scope, and focus on the devices I use before working on the larger task of tracking down information around the internet.
My Computer
I currently have my passwords stored on a document on my desktop and I don’t copy that onto any shared drives. Obviously if my computer itself is hacked or stolen that could be an issue. My computer also saves my passwords across multiple devices (Apple), which is convenient, but I couldn’t tell you if it’s secure at all. According to 9 to 5 Mac, hackers have been able to access passwords on Mac devices. “Via Heise.de, the exploit can purportedly access all the items in the “login” and “System” keychain. The iCloud Keychain is not susceptible as that stores data in a different way. Users can proactively defend themselves by locking the login Keychain with an additional password, but this is not the default configuration and is not convenient to enable as it results in endless security authentication dialogs when using macOS.”
Based on that it seems that using the iCloud Keychain is fine, but that my computer itself may be vulnerable. This is something that I need to think about, and maybe keeping my passwords on my desktop isn’t such a smart idea after all. I have decided to look into some other ways to store my passwords, and will try out one or more of the programs listed in this article from Digital Trends.
I also have decided that I really need to start thinking about getting a VPN for my computer. I have one on my work laptop, but not on my personal computer. I have started to do some research and will need to read around in forums and websites to see which one is right for me. This article from Tech Radar has given me a jumping off point, and I’ll continue to look into my options.
My Smart Phone
After looking at the seemingly endless amounts of apps on my phone, the task of securing my computer seemed simple. Digging around online led me to this article from Mac World with some useful tips on securing your iPhone. After reading through the article I definitely felt like I was doing everything wrong when it came to my security. Not only did I do pretty much everything they said not to, I didn’t even realize I could turn off certain features like sharing location data on my photos. I took the advice in the article and started to work on some of the things it suggested, including the painstaking task of having to go and revoke access to the hundreds of apps on my phone that I didn’t think needed that kind of access to my data.
Social Media
It seems like with every step I go through on this journey to data security, it gets more and more complicated and difficult. At first glance it doesn’t seem like you need to do much outside of having secure passwords to protect your social media accounts, but so many things are connected to social media now. In fact, I went into my Facebook just to see how many things were connected and figured it would be maybe around 10-15 apps, but boy was I wrong.
Yes, you’re reading that right. I have 42 apps and websites that are connected to my Facebook. Forty-two. I bet this is on the small side for most people too as I don’t really actively use my Facebook that much. So this was a fun task to go through and decide if these apps needed access to my Facebook at all, and if they did then how much information did I want them to see.
This was just one small part of the Facebook machine mine you, and doesn’t even touch any of the advertising or other privacy aspects. I also still need to do the same thing on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.
Making Progress, But Still A Long Road Ahead
I’ve just begun to chip away at the vast iceberg of data protection. I feel like I’ve accomplished nothing, but really being aware of the need to protect your data online is a huge step. I think I was able to make some meaningful changes and now I have a plan of action moving forward. I will continue to do little things every day like making sure all my software is up-to-date, and make more informed decisions about who has access to what data. After all, security is an ongoing process and not a single destination, right?
