From the Pope in a white puffer jacket to images of Donald Trump’s arrest, the internet is wilding with threats that can make you believe anything. Artificial intelligence is getting better by the day, and the link between real and fake is about to break.
ChatGPT has passed multiple academic exams, and experts have called for a halt to all AI progress until we find out how to set up boundaries and safeguard against it. But stopping now is still too late to protect unsuspecting victims from cybercrimes. Fraudsters and hackers can now use this new power to scam, hack, or steal the identity of people.
Additionally, digital fingerprinting makes it easy to know what someone is doing at a given time, where they’re accessing the internet from, and when is the best time to strike. Protecting your online identity just became much, much harder.
What is fingerprinting?
Accepting cookies is a billion-dollar industry. The entire world of digital advertising can be attributed to using the word cookie instead of the word tracker. Whenever you search for something online and can’t stop seeing ads for that product or service, these trackers are at fault.
They’re keeping a careful watch on all of your browsing habits and identify intent in milliseconds. It’s like having a billion supercomputers looking at your brain and trying to predict your next move. The algorithms weren’t as good a few years ago, but now they’re downright scary.
Now, imagine all that information in the hands of a hacker instead of a website trying to push products down your throat. It immediately changes the landscape, and you become much warier with what you open and where you click. A digital fingerprint summarizes your entire online identity, where every cookie leaves a crumb, and the hacker just follows the trail.
How can you conceal your digital footprint?
There are two ways to bypass fingerprint tracking. The first one is to make it look like you’re doing the same things as somebody else. That way, the trackers will get confused and wouldn’t treat your activity as an individual. That’s one of the characteristics of the Tor Browser, which makes all instances look the same. The second way is to make it completely random and unidentifiable. There are a few more tips to make it much harder for prying eyes to steal your identity.
Delete unused social media accounts
Social media companies are essentially data factories that take your digital persona and sell it to marketers. Even though Tik Tok might get banned in the United States, it’s not the worst of the bunch. Facebook and Instagram stand at the top of the list when it comes to who knows you best. That’s why it’s best to either delete the social accounts you don’t use on a regular basis or lock down your data.
The first thing that cybercriminals do is check your old profiles to extract as much info as possible and then use it against you or try to damage your personal credibility.
Use a VPN
Virtual private networks are data guardians. They protect your info from leaking on the web by concealing your real IP address and making you as close to private as possible. Researching how a VPN works will help you understand why hackers have so much trouble bypassing the security of these programs.
Don’t post everything online
Twitter is famous for being a thought board where you can write everything on your mind, and nothing happens. Sending out a Tweet that you forgot whether you locked your front door before going to work might seem like a funny thing to your friends, but a cybercriminal might be rubbing their hands on the other side of the screen. Publicly announcing that you’re going on a vacation for the next two weeks is like an open invitation for someone to break in and do a magic trick – make all your belongings disappear.
Use a password manager
The number one cybersecurity rule no one follows is having a separate, strong password for every account. All it takes for one breach to make the others fall like dominoes. On the other hand, carrying a physical notebook with you and writing uppercase and lowercase letters is a nuisance. The solution is to use a password manager. That way, you’re not letting Google have even more insight into your online habits. The best part is that you only need to remember one master password or use your fingerprint or face scan to log in.
