What is a digital footprint?

A digital footprint is a trail that’s left behind through every click, search, or user input. This trail is created each time you connect to the internet, whether directly or through another online source. And with the wealth of digital noise, it’s easier than ever to leave a highly traceable trail. Anything ranging from popups to advertisement banners has been sprinkled all over your favorite websites. So, every time you click on ads or sign up for an account online, you are dropping the proverbial breadcrumbs that connect the trail of your digital footprint.

Is leaving your digital footprint bad?

Digital footprints haven’t always been a point of concern for internet users. In the early stages of the internet, digital footprint limitation was not very important due to the lack of hackers and cybercriminals. But the rise of internet usage and increasing dependence on online data storage has left room for breaches in security and cybercrimes. Therefore, it is more important than ever to reduce your digital footprint. When you leave traces of your online presence across the internet, you become more vulnerable to hackers.

Even if you unknowingly sign up for an online account on a hacked website, your password and other identifying information can be exposed, leaving your whole digital framework vulnerable to identity theft and additional exploitation. There has been an increasing number of daily hacks and breaches across every platform, and no online service can guarantee your personal security.

Ways to secure your digital footprint.

1. Don't click on random surveys or popups.

Of all the ways to leave a digital footprint, clicking on random surveys or popups tops the list for increasing personal information exposure. The purpose of popups and surveys is to generate money or increase mailing lists for companies or brands. Your information safety is not on their priority list, as the advertisements just serve as clickbait for their profit. Therefore, there is really no need to click on popups you see online, which will reduce your digital footprint immensely. For more information, WebRoot discuss how these popups could actually contain harmful malware designed to attack users in this article.

2. Keep your antivirus software up to date

Often times the easiest solution is the most overlooked solution. Antivirus software is not prioritized by many internet users, despite being one of the surest ways to boost security. Since not all viruses are meant to harm or hack, antimalware is needed to ensure that even those seemingly harmless attacks are avoided (PCMag). These viruses are designed to collect information on your browsing history and alter your software to show targeted ads that generate the most profits. Therefore, a healthy online habit is to check that your antimalware is up to date every 3 days or so to guarantee the most security.

3. Check your privacy settings on your socials

Most social media platforms will allow you to set your privacy preferences in the settings. It is recommended that you avoid having fully public profiles and only allow for approved users to see your postings and personal information. This includes social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook, as there are many traces of your digital footprint when frequenting these sites. Many cybercriminals are able to access your public-facing information and use social engineering or other types of manipulation to put you at risk. Using stricter privacy settings is a quick and easy way to ensure stronger security by reducing your traceable steps.

4. Be respectful on the internet and limit your online interactions

The whole idea behind reducing your digital footprint involves limiting exposure to your personal information, whether intentionally or not. Overall, this means limiting your online interactions. One of the easiest ways to engage on the internet while limiting exposure is to keep postings light and respectful. Online interactions can gain unwanted publicity when they are controversial or argumentative, garnering attention from cybercriminals and hackers.

5. Delete old web accounts

Did you know? All of the Fortune 500 companies have had been hacked by cybercriminals at some point over the last decade, leaving some of their clients and users information vulnerable (Business Insider). Therefore, every account under your name, whether old or new, could be targeted. To reduce your chances of becoming a victim of cybercrime, it is recommended to delete any unused accounts. When you erase old accounts, you will reduce points of access for threat actors because your digital footprint becomes smaller. Deleting old accounts reduces your traceable steps and keeps your information safe.

6. Turn on "Do Not Track" options

Have you ever noticed that a browser seems to know your location and interests a little too specifically? This is due to the vast access websites gain through tracking and data analytics. Recently, internet tracking has gained more attention from the public. In response, many search engines are beginning to provide a “Do Not Track” option for users wanting to reduce their digital footprint. The “Do Not Track” option prevents websites from tracking your location and other data inputs to create targeted ads. When your internet whereabouts are more ambiguous and protected, your digital footprint decreases along with your chances of getting hacked. However, there have been concerns of website and companies not respecting Do Not Track (MakeUseOf). At the very least enabling is better than nothing.

7. Create a public-facing email that is separate from your private email

Another great way to reduce your digital footprint is to create a public-facing email that is separate from your private email. Public-facing emails can be used for junk or spam, subscriptions, and less important accounts. Private emails, on the other hand, should be used more for work and personal needs. This will allow you to ensure that important data and personally identifiable information is kept secure in a private email, while the public email can be used for those pesky spam items.

With the public-facing email, be sure to limit the amount of personally identifiable information used, only inputting the bare minimum to avoid any security risks. While your private email can be more in-depth, remember to limit its exposure in public matters. The public-facing email with leave the majority of your digital footprints, but there is less risk due to the lack of connection to your personal information and data.

8. Regularly clear your browsing history and cache

The last step for reducing your digital footprint is to regularly clear your browsing history and cache. When these are left uncleared, the browser continues to catalog and load your previous website, increasing your digital trail. This leaves your information more vulnerable to threat actors and can be potentially harmful. Browser history makes a very large cyber footprint, and therefore should be cleared regularly to decrease the impact.

Conclusion

Overall, utilizing all of these steps is highly recommended to ensure your safety online. While there are no foolproof methods to avoid all hacking and viruses, these best practices are an great way to stay a step ahead. Reducing your digital footprint can be easy and only take up a couple minutes of your day – a small price to pay for vastly improved security.

To learn more about small business cyber security and your organizations cyber footprint, click this link to talk to one of our experts today!

It's hard to determine what we would classify as part of the ‘cloud’, which is why many corporations and organizations follow the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) framework from the U.S Department of Commerce. This framework gives those of us who work in the industry a guideline on how to classify and manage cybersecurity risks and assets based on existing standards, guidelines, and practices. 

NIST Cloud Framework Essential Characteristics

On Demand Self-Service

Cloud services should be readily available when requested while being able to be quickly set up and installed. There shouldn’t be much need for manual setup and configuration on the users end in terms of building up the raw infrastructure and facilities.

Broad Network Access

Users should be able to access the cloud environment from any place that has an internet connection. There are obviously limitations to the accessibility given the nature of the cloud environment and user privilege settings. Given any limitations the proper security measures should be put in place to make sure that the cloud services are properly secured regardless of where the services are being accessed. Some examples of proper security in the cloud include VPNs, 2 factor authentication, etc. You can read more about cloud security here. 

Rapid Elasticity

Organizations should be able to increase or decrease their cloud computational resources as easily as they need to without much issue. This means that cloud technology needs to be able to handle both small and large amounts of traffic at any given time. 

Resource Pooling

Usually most cloud technology environments services multiple clients on the same platform. This means that space and resources on a specific cloud service are shared amongst the users instead of being individually provisioned for every new user. There are exceptions to this depending on the security and processing needs of the consumer, but for the most part usually it is acceptable for cloud platforms to pool resources for more efficient cloud operation.

Measured Service

Cloud services aren’t free. Most of the time cloud services would charge their users based on how much of their cloud resources they have consumed. Usually there are specific terms and limits to how much you can use before the charges get progressively higher or lower. 

NIST Cloud Framework Common Characteristics

Massive Scale

Most cloud technologies are highly scalable due to the fact that these cloud platforms are hosted in large data centers that are meant specifically to make it easier to add or remove computing systems. They usually come as server racks and can be easily replaced, repaired, and managed when the need arises.

Resilient Computing

Most cloud service providers understand the importance of service uptimes. Cloud resiliency is the ability for a data server, storage system, or even an entire network to recover from any disruptions and continue operations quickly and efficiently. There are technologies that are in place to ensure the seamless experience of these cloud services. Some examples include RAID arrays, UPS devices, and load balancers.

Homogeneity

Some companies like to implement homogeneous cloud systems, where one vendor provides you with your entire cloud infrastructure. This proves useful in that it makes securing, auditing, and testing the cloud services easier for a more seamless experience. 

Geographic Distribution

When talking about resilient computing, one aspect of that is the fact the multiple data centers can be distributed across vastly different geographical locations. This provides two benefits for cloud providers. The first being that if one data center goes down due to a natural environmental disaster in the area ,such as an earthquake or a power outage, there are other data centers in different geographical locations that weren’t affected that can continue to provide seamless cloud services. The other advantage is that by strategically placing different data centers in certain locations, it could optimize the network speed of users by letting them access the data center that is closest to them. 

Virtualization

One of the benefits of cloud technology is that it usually allows the virtualization of specific environments that users could use. For instance if you want to host your website on a cloud hosting server through HostGator, you have many choices as to how you want to run your website. You could run a react/angular application, a self setup wordpress website, or even a simple raw html file with no frameworks or libraries built on top of it. The ability to use one piece of cloud infrastructure and apply many different platforms on top of it through virtualization allows for a lot of flexibility for its users.

Service Orientation

Since cloud providers know the market that they are providing for, they are able to orient their cloud computing platforms to help make their specific target cloud consumer services and experiences smoother. For instance if a cloud provider knows that its consumers mostly use it for website hosting, then the cloud servers will be built and organized in a way that is optimized for application hosting. Similarly if a cloud provider mainly provides its consumers with transactional services, they will optimize their data center servers accordingly to make transactions faster and more secure. 

Low Cost Software

Instead of having to run software on your own network and physical devices which could be costly to maintain, setup, and monitor, cloud alternatives can help provide similar software services at a much lower cost. 

Advanced Security

Since you aren’t setting up these services within your organization, cloud service providers usually have some type of enhanced cloud security features set in place either by default or as plugins. 

 

Different Types of Cloud Actors

There are many different types of cloud cloud technologies with many different uses. However in terms of the organizational groups that use cloud technology , the NIST cloud computing reference architecture categorizes them into 5 Cloud Actors.

Cloud Consumers

These are people, organizations, or businesses that use cloud services that are provided by cloud providers. These usually span across many different industries for many different reasons. 

Cloud Providers

This is an organization or business that is providing the service to cloud consumers. Cloud providers usually come as IaaS, PaaS, or SaaS service providers. 

Cloud Auditors

This is a party or individual that is able to conduct independent assessments of cloud services performance , general operations, and overall security. This is to ensure that cloud providers are providing the proper security for their consumers and are optimizing their cloud architecture to prevent problems or financial losses in the long term. 

Cloud Brokers

This is an entity that solely manages the use, performance, and delivery of cloud solutions. They are the man in the middle between cloud consumers and providers and are usually Major Service Providers (MSPs) or other cloud providers who make a commission by offering cloud solutions of other cloud providers. 

Cloud Carriers

These are the internet service providers that provide you the connectivity to and from cloud providers and cloud consumers. They don’t play an active role in most cloud services; however, your choice on a cloud carrier depends on the services that you plan on using as a cloud consumer or cloud provider. Some providers wont allow certain port connections while other limit your bandwidth. So it is advisable for anyone interested in cloud platforms to talk to someone about their internet service provider.