Users face risks from years of accumulated online data, including social media accounts, comments, photos, message boards, and marketplace listings. The information remains online and can cause issues for those who posted it, Kaspersky said in a statement.
The data interests potential employers, government agencies, advertisers, scammers, and former partners. HR departments conduct background checks on candidates before hiring.
Services that search for information from data breaches can enable doxing and harassment.
How to search for your digital footprint online
Kaspersky has shared guidelines on managing digital footprints and reducing the amount of information available online.
- Conduct searches for your own name:
- Users should search for themselves to identify where they registered and to check for fake accounts or impersonation.
- Delete accounts and posts from the past:
- After addressing fake accounts and listing genuine ones, users should delete accounts that are no longer needed. Users should not rely on initial searches or memory alone.
- Email archives show which sites and services send messages to users. Lists of saved passwords in browsers or password managers provide information about accounts.
- Address shadow profiles:
- Social media sites generate shadow profiles containing data that may remain after account deletion. These profiles can include information users never shared with the service. Users who granted the Facebook app access to phone contacts without importing them into their account may find that all data from the address book ended up in a shadow profile.
- These accounts sometimes get created for users who never registered with the service, through data gathered from other platforms and open sources. While preventing shadow profiles completely is nearly impossible, users can minimise the damage. Users should review apps and revoke access to data including cameras, photos, contacts, and location. Users should monitor which permissions they grant to each app.
- Activate data breach notifications:
- Data leaks occur online virtually every day, exposing IP addresses, names, phone numbers, email addresses, payment information, and other data. Websites like Have I Been Pwned allow users to enter email addresses and receive alerts if they appear in leaked databases.
- “For a comprehensive approach and greater convenience, it’s best to monitor leaks through Kaspersky Premium — we search for breaches using both email addresses and phone numbers,” Kaspersky stated.
- Users can add all email addresses and phone numbers for themselves and their families. The company will warn users about breaches almost immediately through the Kaspersky Security Network (KSN), which is described as a threat intelligence infrastructure.
- Preventing leaks single-handedly is impossible for users. The defence is to limit how much data users share when registering accounts.
- Clear email inboxes:
- Email inboxes containing messages with information are part of digital footprints. Users should search their mail using keywords like “password”, “SSN”, or “account”, and delete emails containing this data.
- Users should unsubscribe from mailing lists. This lowers the chance that email addresses will leak from databases used by marketers.
- Remove traces stored locally:
- Users should clear browser history, cookies, and cache on all devices at least once a month. Users can set up browsers to clear this data when closing them. This lessens the chance of an outsider collecting information from devices if they gain access.
- On smartphones, users should disable or reset advertising identifiers periodically.
- Check privacy settings:
- Users can check and adjust privacy and security settings through Privacy Checker, which is a service offered without charge. It guides users on how to configure social platforms, services, and operating systems to their desired level of privacy.
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Tools for eliminating digital footprints can be found in Kaspersky Blog.
