When you browse the web information is continuously collected by the websites you visit and is also stored on your PC in the form of small text files called "cookies". For example, websites at a minimum collect information about the web browser you use the operating system of your computer and the approximate locational information for example country, state an city. However, many sites collect more information than what is actually required including your surfing habits and daily use of internet , what you purchased , your gender and sometimes even age group and IP.
Your web browser stores a lot of different types of information which is designed to improve your internet surfing experience but nevertheless poses a privacy risk. The sites or URLs which you visit are stored in the browsers history. Search results are saved when you enter a search term into a search engine like Google, Bing or Yahoo. A part of the web site such as scripts, html content and images are stored in the temp folder to allow local caching and improve your experience and performance of the website. The browsers also typically store the history of links visited and can corelate the information with cookies stored.
Cookie is a small text file and is used by websites to offer advanced features. Some of the information that cookies can store includes shopping basket items or log-in information for a membership site, last url visited on the site. Cookies can also store information about when you visited the site including date and time.
Given all this information being collected about you, you can easily see why this could become a privacy risk. It would not much of effort to understand what you were doing online, what websites you visited, what you have bought online and what search terms you have used on the search engines. This is unfortunately not the end of it and has more perils in store.
There are number of other places besides your web browser where information is stored on your computer. This data can allow people to figure out what you have been doing on your computer. Media players like VLC, RealPlayer , Microsoft Media Player suite history, your chat engine history, your application history for example Adobe PDF or Microsoft Office applications also store information about the most recently accessed files.
Another important thing to remember is that when you delete a file it is not necessarily permanently erased and can be recovered with the help of software called as Data Recovery tools. When you first delete, the file is only moved to the Recycle Bin. Even when you empty the Recycle Bin the file still exists on your hard drive and its name is only deleted from the File Allocation Table until Windows overwrites it.
Increased adoption of smart devices and Internet of Things (IoT) has also lead to increased probability of exposure of personal information. Astonishingly 90% of Internet of Things (IoT) devices collect at least one piece of personal information via the device, app, or cloud service. (HP study, July 2014). Other key facts relate to Privacy and IoT devices and smart mobiles are :
• 70% of IoT devices contain a vulnerability that allows an attacker to discover valid user accounts.
• 91% percent of American adults feel consumers have lost control of personal data that is collected, and 55% of American adults are willing to share some personal data to use a service for free.
• 4 million smartphones are lost, and 3.1 million are stolen, and only 7% use encryption or other security protection and only 8% install software that can help a user find a lost phone. (Consumer Reports National Research Center, 2014)
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada also did a research to highlight the cyber risks arising out of privacy and increased exposure due to mobile devices. You can read the report here or PDF here.
Here are some tips to help you reduce the privacy risks from your computer :
Use Browsers in Incognito Mode
Web browsers offer a data-expiry incognito or private mode. When you open a session in this mode, the browsers will delete the data and remove the web history of the pages you visit and the keywords you search as soon as you close the browser ; which means your local web browsing will not leave any trace on your device and also no cookies for further sessions making it difficult for sites to remember your preferences for previous visits.
While the private browsing doesn’t make you invisible for your ISP and sites you logged in. For instance, if you logged into LinkedIn or Facebook in incognito mode, the social network will still record your activity and since you are using an internet service provider, by law it will also store your IP and browsing history. While you can't prevent logging on the site's end, you can still hide your browsing from your ISP using a VPN - Virtual Private Network software, more about VPN's on another page.
Avoid Filling up Surveys
When you visit sites, you may get lot of advertisement popups or web pages that will ask you for your email ID or phone number to offer you something free for example offering a free online magazine. As soon as you share your email ID or your phone number , you have exposed your IP, your device OS, browser version and IP all as a package to the site.
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