Digital Security Protection

JW Pipkin

Hi All,

I am new to these discussions and I apologie in advance if this topic has already been talked about. My concern has to do with maintaining all the items the Digital Identity Protection app identifies as vulnerabilities and excesses in one's "digital footprint".

My main concern is how many "services" are listed in one's digital footprint. Many of the websites on my footprint list must be websites that got piggy backed onto some other website for which I visited. In addition, when one clicks on the link called "manage your data" for any given website on one's footprint list you have the choices of deleting your data and requesting all the personal data that website collected about you.

These are great tools but in some cases the action cannot be completed. If the action cannot be completed you have to spend time researching why an action cannot be completed. I personally do not feel motivated to root through whatever avenues are required to reach resolution. What is a good resource for that?

On top of that, I got a dark web alert that says there was a Financial Data Collection October 2024 data breach (whatever the hell that was). My hope is the Digital Identity Protection app will take action when there is impending financial harm I experience (knowing what may have happend in the past may not be remediated). Otherwise, I just have to sit and wonder whan and what criminals are selling my SSN, phone #, home address, and whatever else might be valuable information about me from that data breach. From what I understand, breaches like that affect millions of people and peons like me just might be at the bottom of the food chain but that is an uncomfortably questionable form of optimism.

In other words, the Digital Identity Potection app is both a boon and a bane. There is security in knowing I have an app that alerts me to potential problems and directs me to solve them but there are a lot of cases where the solution appears to be very obscure for one who is not all that savvy about cyber security and how threats can be stemmed and how holes in your security can be sufficiently plugged.

Thanks,

Jack

Alexandru_BD

Hello @JW Pipkin and thanks for joining us here.

Those are all good questions and there's indeed more to the story here, because when data breaches happen, I think it's impossible to know the full extent of the leaked data or where it ends up, and once it's out there, you can't really remove it from all the corners of the Internet.

I think the main purpose of a service like Digital Identity Protection revolves around raising awareness and being proactive about your accounts and digital footprint. First, let's dive into how this service actually works and what it can do.

To find stolen data, DIP scans the dark corners of the web using various methods. Once the data is found, it uses a proprietary system for identity resolution to discover the identity of the breached individual, so it can alert the person about the breach, even if the breach itself includes little or outdated information.

Most commonly, breaches include information about users’ emails, passwords, names and usernames, phone numbers, and physical addresses. Their exposed data creates a snowball effect that ultimately leads to the leak, sale, or trade of entire digital identities on the Dark Web. Breaches are not necessary found on a specific website. They are in a compilation of usernames, passwords, phone numbers, etc. found in archives or texts on the Dark Web, in general.

The Digital Identity Protection service raises awareness about your Digital Footprint (data exposed in Surface Web) and remediation steps for data breaches (data exposed in Dark Web). However, you would not be able to change the username for a specific website, for example, but you will be informed that in that specific period, data about you has appeared in data lists on the Dark Web.

This means that you could become victim of a scam. As the purpose is to raise awareness of these breaches and the data involved can be various, there are no mitigation steps for this type of situation. If the breach was about a password, you could have changed it, but the breach can also involve other types of data, such as phone numers, address, etc. And if these are listed somewhere in the dark corners of the web, there is no possible way to retrieve or delete them from there, because you don't have control over that leaked information.

There are some insightful articles on this topic, which cover the usual scenarios of usage and available remediation steps, along with tips on how to protect your digital identity and you can check them out here:

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/32463/

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/32562/

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/28360/

https://www.bitdefender.com/consumer/support/answer/116156/

Unfortunately, there is no way that you or anyone else can prevent a data breach from happening. However, you can decrease the chance of your information being misused by knowing what to do if your data is involved in a data breach.

I hope this brings more clarity.

Regards,

Alex