The Potential Consequences of Not Keeping Your Personal Information Secure

By Pete Campbell

It will shock most people to learn that the safety of personal information is now the exception, not the rule. According to Edition.cnn.com, a 2017 poll revealed that 64% of Americans had suffered from data breaches that resulted in their personal information being exposed. The consequences of loss of confidentiality of personal information can be varied and often quite severe. Some of the top reasons for keeping your personal information secure are:

To Prevent Identity Theft

In simple terms, identity theft occurs when someone uses your personal information to pretend to be you in the online world. By assuming your online identity, they can commit mischief of various kinds including financial fraud, tax fraud, or even post content on your social media accounts that can damage your reputation and land you into problems with your employers, college administrators, the police, and more. While there are very many ways of keeping your personal information secure, the golden rule is never to part with information unless it is really necessary and that too only those you trust.

To Prevent Financial Theft

It is important not to share your bank account information with anyone or use online banking using an unsecured Wi-Fi connection. Shop only on sites that have Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption and who never save your debit or credit card information on shopping sites. Being alert to skimming devices at ATMs and POS terminals can help significantly even though you are protected by the advanced security feature set that comes with Watson, IBM’s popular artificial intelligence (AI) platform.

Avoid Being Robbed

Usually, houses get burgled when they are empty. This means that you need to be more careful not to avoid posting details of your work hours or that you are going on a vacation on social media. It can be exciting to let your friends know that you are going on a vacation to Greece during the school holidays but remember it is also an open invitation to burglars to visit your home.

Prevent Your Career from Being Sabotaged

If your social media accounts get hacked, it can not only cause you severe embarrassment but your employers may not be exactly pleased by your purported social behavior. Eric Dalius shows that it is usual for potential employers to conduct background checks and you can have them rejecting you because of inappropriate content on your social media accounts that you may not even be aware of.

Protect Yourself from Legal Proceedings

Your digital footprint in the public domain is there for everyone to see. What you post online can be used against you or to defend you in any legal proceedings. There are known instances of people losing court cases because of what they had posted online.

There are several instances when someone gets up in the morning to find out that a lot of cash has been siphoned out of their bank account. These are instances of identity theft or fraudulent transactions. However, all these can be avoided or kept at bay if you have security software installed in all your devices connected to the virtual world.

Tips for staying safe and avoiding cyber fraud

Check this out-

Shred important documents- Never leave any document or paper with information or personal details about your banking transactions and personal bank account. Shred and discard or tear them up into pieces and dispose of them in a safe place.

Keep documents in a safe place at home- When storing relevant documents like your social security documents, birth certificates, inheritance or property papers, and your educational qualification records, keep them safely in your home. Even bank vaults are not safe; many times fraudsters drill the vaults to remove the contents; it happens because they are not insured.

Keep password protected- If you have to type in your password on any website, keep your account safe with the help of a strong password that cannot be easily deciphered or decoded by the hackers. A combination of special characters, numerals, and alphabets is better.

Do not let out information over the phone- None of the banks or financial institutions ask for your personal identification number or bank details or passwords over the phone. So, never let out these details to anyone that has called up and is asking for the same.

Provide personal details only if necessary- You must not provide any personal information to anyone unless required. And even if you have to give details, furnish when you are sure that you are dealing with an authentic vendor or service provider.

Keep your devices locked- This is one of the most critical aspects that you must pay heed to. Set a password for all your devices that you use for online banking transactions or at POS or point of sale. Only you can enter this password and access the device.

One of the final tips is that you know you are safe if you are using a dependable and reputed identity theft software application. It will keep you safe from all fraudulent activities and mainly identity theft.

Conclusion

Private information should always stay private to the maximum extent because otherwise, it can be used to defraud you or spoil your reputation by hackers. It is important to practice effective security measures to ensure that cybercriminals cannot easily get access to your online accounts. You also need to remain vigilant so that you can take appropriate remedial action in the case of any security breach.

Author’s Bio:

By Pete Campbell, who is a writer and social media manager and has immense knowledge about marketing and finance who is experienced in the field of IT and also suggests an advanced security feature set that comes with Watson

More about Irish Tech News and Business Showcase here.

FYI the ROI for you is => Irish Tech News now gets over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 50,000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles.

If you would like to be featured in our podcast series drop us a line & don’t forget to sign up for notifications for our latest episodes and follow us on Twitter, Linkedin, SoundCloud, iTunes or your own favourite podcast platform.

Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you and hopefully, we can share your story too and reach our global audience. We are agile, responsive, quick and talented, we look forward to working with you!

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking