How to Protect, Prepare, & Personal - CommPRO

How to Protect, Prepare, &
Organize    Your   Personal
Digital Health in 2021
Bruce Mendelsohn (The Hired Pen)

Just like changing our smoke detector batteries when we shift
from Daylight Savings Time to Standard Time, the beginning of
each year reminds us to conduct a “Personal Digital Health
Checkup”.

Beyond the practical benefit of protecting your digital health
and privacy, the hour or so you invest to review, clean,
organize, and update the settings on your browsers, social
media, email, and Virtual Home Assistants will enhance your
digital privacy and security throughout 2021.

In 2020, the average internet user spent 6 hours and 43
minutes online every day (Statista). You can visit a lot of
sites in almost seven hours. Multiply that by 365 and you’ll
have a rough idea of how vulnerable you are to revealing
Personally Identifiably Information (PII). (This doesn’t
include sites you visit on your smartphone, mobile device, or
other internet-enabled devices).

Before you start assessing your personal digital health, you
need to discover where you’re vulnerable to cyberattacks,
malware, phishing scams, or worse. How open is your digital
door?

Of course, you use strong passwords. Sure, you regularly clear
your cache, disable cookies, and erase your browser history.

As a savvy Internet user, you know that companies and websites
track everything you do online. Every ad, social network, and
website collects data about your location, search history,

browsing habits, purchasing patterns, and more. That info is
stored somewhere in some digital folder, which means it’s
vulnerable to bad actors. (See security breach, Pentagon).

Aggregated over time, the digital data you disseminate in
cyberspace could be used to identify you and/or track your
behavior via tactics like IP lookups and browser
fingerprinting. All that info can enable bad guys to create a
profile that matches… you. Like the saying goes, it’s not
paranoia if it’s real.

The checklist and resources below can help safeguard your
personal digital health.

Browsers
As of January 2, 2021, the Internet was home to more than 1.83
billion websites (Tek Eye). Regardless of the browser you use
to access your favorite sites (Google Chrome is the most
popular, with 61.77% web browser dominance), don’t leave
behind digital breadcrumbs for bad actors to follow.

   1. Use the free analyzer at Privacy.net. It offers several
      tests to evaluate your browser privacy, listing info
      that any website, digital ad, and/or widget can collect
      from your web browser.
   2. Find out if your data has been breached. 93% of data
      breaches happen within minutes, and 83% aren’t
      discovered for weeks (Statista). Search for your email
      address on Have I Been Pwned? to cross-reference your
      email address with hundreds of data breaches.
   3. Opt out of data sharing. User-friendly programs like
      Simple Opt Out let you reduce your profile by opting out
      of data sharing routinely done by prominent companies
      like Netflix, PayPal, and Facebook.
   4. Clear your cache. Do this after you’ve completed the
      three steps above. Even though you may likely have to
      re-enter your passwords when you return to sites you

visit often, you’re going to update your passwords
     anyway. Regardless, it’s prudent to clear your cache and
     browsing history routinely.

Social Media
The best way to protect your privacy on social media is to not
be on social media. For most of us, though, opting out of
social media is unrealistic. The steps below can increase your
privacy on sites like Facebook (nearing 3 billion users
worldwide), Twitter (336 million monthly active users),
LinkedIn (500 million users), Instagram (1 billion users),
YouTube, SnapChat, TikTok, etc.

     Reduce your exposure to identity theft: At minimum, hide
     your phone number, birth date, email address, and
     location in your social media profiles.
     Cull your contacts. Remove anyone who you can’t remember
     where/how you met or with whom you haven’t communicated
     in five years (at least).
     Review Facebook’s privacy shortcuts. They change often.
           Privacy Checkup guides you through some of your
           privacy and security settings.        Review your
           choices to help ensure you share with whom you
           want.
           Review and edit the basic info on your profile and
           designate who can see it.
           Edit the privacy and settings for your apps and
           games.
     Review your settings on Twitter’s Safety and Security
     page.
     Review your settings on Instagram’s Privacy and Safety
     Center.

Email
One in every 131 emails contain dangerous malware such as
ransomware and phishing attacks (Statista), so you should
always be vigilant about privacy when using email. For
shopping, contest entries, or other commercial online
activities, create and use a burner email account you don’t
care about. (This can also decrease spam you get at your
“main” email account.)

Weak or stolen passwords is the most common tactic among
cybercriminals. Because 81% of cyberattacks are based on weak
or stolen passwords (Statista), the best way to protect your
privacy and security is to use a password manager to generate
and remember different, complex passwords for each account.

LastPass and 1Password each generate passwords, monitor
accounts for security breaches, suggest changing weak
passwords, and sync passwords between your computer and
phone.

Use two-step authentication whenever it’s offered for your
online accounts. Two-step authentication requires you to enter
your password and a number only you can access. For extra
security, use an app like Google Authenticator to receive the
temporary log-in access codes you receive.

Here are three top tips to protect your security when using
email:

   1. Use strong passwords and change them often (see above)
   2. Avoid public Wi-Fi
   3. Guard your email     address:   Because   cybercriminals
     constantly troll these venues for victims, don’t share
     your email address on social media or in blog posts.

Now that you’ve secured your data and email addresses, the
tips below can help you quickly access the data and emails you
so diligently protected:

Empty your trash and spam folders on your email
           accounts
           Create a “Archive” folder and put inactive folders
           (2019 and earlier) into it
           Create a “2020 Master Folder” where you store
           inactive or completed 2020 project folders
           Create a “2021 Master Folder” where you create and
           place sub-folders for continuing projects,
           anticipated projects, or action items (e.g., “To-
           Do” sub-folder)
     Organize your folders on Google Shared Drive, DropBox,
     etc. Review permissions and add or remove contacts as
     appropriate.

Virtual Home Assistants: Mute the
“Never-Sleeping Ear”
This one’s simple.

If you’re concerned about your personal privacy and don’t want
anyone recording or listening to your conversations, don’t
install or use a personal virtual assistant in your house.
Using these or other smart devices are calculated risks that
significantly increase your vulnerability.

“You had to live – did live, from habit that became instinct –
in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard.”
(Orwell, 1984)

But since Amazon has sold more than 100 million Alexa-enabled
devices, you may be one of the five U.S. adults who own a home
voice assistant (Alexa, Echo, Google Assistant are the most
widely used). Always “on” (even when they’re not awake), the
devices are always listening but not always transmitting.

We’re not (yet) at this stage of Orwellian intrusiveness; you
can protect your privacy and still benefit from your home

virtual assistant via a few easy steps.

   1. Turn off the camera and mics: On the Echo Show and Show
      5, use the “off” button on top of the unit. The red LED
      light visually confirms the mic and camera are disabled.
   2. Change your wake word: Open the Alexa app on your mobile
      device, find your speaker in Devices and choose your new
      wake word (options: Computer, Amazon, or Echo)
   3. Change your privacy settings:
         1. Open the Alexa app on your mobile device.
         2. Tap the menu button on the top left of the screen.

(Alexa app > Alexa Account > Alexa Privacy > Manage how your
data improves Alexa > Disable the button next to Help Develop
New Features > Disable the button next to your name under Use
Messages to Improve Transcriptions)

   4. Turn off automatic purchasing: Under the Voice
      Purchasing setting, disable “Purchase by Voice” in the
      Alexa app. Or create a PIN code to avoid unauthorized
      purchases. (Alexa app > Settings > Account Settings >
      Voice Purchasing > Disable Purchase by Voice)

Reviewed offers more details about how to protect your privacy
when using an Alexa-enabled Virtual Home Assistant.

One last piece of advice: Put a reminder in your calendar to
check your personal digital health around July 4th. As we use
and store more of our PII online, rising cybercrime,
ransomware, malware, and data breaches demand that we manage
our personal digital health as diligently and zealously as we
manager our mental, physical, and spiritual health.

About the Author: Bruce R. Mendelsohn
                      is The Hired Pen, a Digital Marketing
                      and Content Development Consultant
                      who helps diverse clients develop
                      memorable, measurable, monetizable,
                      and culturally sensitive multimedia
                      engagement     campaigns.     He   is
                      a      verified       professional
journalist and a U.S. Army Veteran. The Hired Pen is a
Service-Disabled  Veteran-Owned     Business    Enterprise
(SDVOBE). Please follow on Twitter @brm90 or connect
onLinkedIn.