Who’s got your data in this digital world? Stay safe online

Data, data everywhere – or so it seems. It is tough to imagine living our lives without email and the internet, but that accessibility and flexibility comes with risk. It seems like hardly a day goes by without the media reporting a cybercriminal hacking into a database, or a company losing customer data.

Clearly businesses and governments need to take better steps to protect their customer data. But what is equally clear is that we, as individuals, need to be aware just when we are risking our personal data in our everyday lives, and we need to take steps to do our own bit to secure our data and lessen our risks.

Data collection is so all pervasive in our lives that often we don’t even know when that data is even at risk. To help educate people, we’ve developed this stay safe tool to give people simple tips on how to protect their personal information while going about their everyday lives. Please take a look and let me know what you think.

Dominic Cook

June 19, 2009 | Filed Under Phishing, Social Media, cyber-crime, data-loss 

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2 Responses to “Who’s got your data in this digital world? Stay safe online”

  1. Andrew Lorimer on June 19th, 2009

    I enjoyed using your ’stay safe tool’; I felt it was fun, informative and well designed.

  2. John Bloodworth on June 26th, 2009

    By their nature many people are hoarders, they keep anything and everything in cupboards, boxes or in the attic. This behaviour can translate in to the attitude to data, with people storing everything they think is important or they might need in the future. The issue comes because this is no longer stored in a box in a cupboard in their house with a locked door, this is now stored on systems connected to everyone else in the world and on memory sticks that are easily lost and even on their phones. When things are stored in a box they are easy to keep an eye on, when things are digital they are not as they can be copied and spread around easily, it’s this that requires attention. An internet connected device is not a locked box but an easy target. Making the system as “locked” as possible is one step but reeducation in storage of sensitive data is equally as important

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