Online identity: Giving it all away?

Abstract

With a wealth of personal data now residing across various locations online, individuals can find themselves at increasing risk of too much information being exposed. This in turn may increase the potential for threats such as cyber-snooping, social engineering, and identity theft based upon the gathered details. In many cases the exposure occurs as a result of what individuals directly post about themselves on social networks and blog sites, whereas in some cases it happens thanks to other people posting things beyond their control. This paper examines the potential risks and some of the routes by which information might be harvested. It then proceeds to consider some of the potential consequences, presenting examples of how people can be duped using freely available information and how willingly they appear to expose it to others. Recognising the ease of online search, and the difficulty of reigning back information once it is exposed, the requirement is clearly to improve user awareness and control over their data in the first instance.