Cyber Security is the body of technologies, processes, and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs, and data from attack, damage, or unauthorized access.
Cyber and security do not belong in the same sentence anymore today. Given what we as individuals may have experienced and what we have seen happen to large companies, retailers, and the government it seems that security while wished for and strived for is still dubious at best, and is often simply an illusion.
There is no such thing as privacy on the Internet. Any device you have, Smart TV, Smart phones, iPads, microwaves, refrigerators and any other device that can connect to the Internet is subject to hacking, subject to intercept and exploitation of any data collected. Any device that has a transmitter can be used covertly to record and transmit conversations from anyone near the device.
How many of you have pictures of your vehicles with the license plate number visible on your cell phones or computers, pictures of your house or apartment building with the house numbers or street addresses showing?
Who has their emergency supplies inventory stored in a spreadsheet on their computer, or uploaded to the Cloud, has pictures in a Dropbox account or have pictures and documents stored in a folder in their email box.
Facebook accounts are not private regardless of what you believe. Far too much information is stored there and gathered by the social media site so you can be targeted by advertisements. Some might say it’s no big deal if they target me because of my personal information I just ignore the ads. Well, merchants are not the only ones who may target you.
Having all of your information in one place means all of your information is stolen at one time.
We simply cannot give up our cell phones, our computers our Smart TV because how else can you stream movies, watch videos, and chat with your friends. Our desire for more has left us vulnerable because we refuse to do without, so we ignore certain warnings for that daily fix of Facebook, Snap Chat and so forth.
No one should be able to access any of your prepping information online. No one should be able to figure out where you live by studying pictures you have posted online. Have you heard of Geotagging? Geotagging is the process by which anyone can determine the location just by the tags on your photos.
Several manufacturers offer cameras with a built-in GPS receiver, but most cameras with this capability are camera phones. Some models also include a compass to indicate the direction the camera was facing when the picture was taken.
Many Smartphone’s Automatically Geotags Their Photos by Default
When Geotagged photos are uploaded to online sharing communities such as Flickr, Panoramio, or Moblog, the photo can be placed onto a map to view the location the photo was taken. In this way, users can browse photos from a map, search for photos from a given area, and find related photos of the same place from other users.
Photographers who prefer not to reveal their location can turn this feature off. Additionally, Smartphone’s can use their GPS to Geotag photos taken with an external camera.
As you can see, innocent actions can lead someone to your location, to your front door, and you may have thought you did everything possible to avoid revealing personal information online.
As we stated in a previous article, we the average consumer have access to technology, but as technology advances, only a small group of people will have access to advanced technology. At some point, it is conceivable that only governments and certain groups will have virtually all of the access while the rest of us are only allowed to gather up the outdated crumbs.
Stop and think about what you are doing before posting anything online, before hitting send on an email and before having a conversation that you wouldn’t want others to hear.
Frankly, there is too much sharing going on. You may think that you are only sharing with a co-working or an online friend or a group of friends but you may be sharing with thousands if not tens of thousands of others.