Shred everything, don’t give data away

I remember the CEO of a security company insisting on shredding all paperwork because “there is more than enough personal data out there freely available without adding to it”.

Social media is often used to mine information to support attacks where people are manipulated into handing over credentials, data or money. Just how easy it is to unintentionally give away personal data unless you adopt a “security-first mindset”, is illustrated in this report of an estate agent’s video tour of a house for sale.

It appears the vendor and agent discussed the security implications and some of it was blurred out. But sensitive data was still visible. As was personal information that could lead to socially engineered attacks.

The challenge for all of us is to keep pace with how we collect and use data so it doesn’t race too far ahead of our security awareness, processes and technical measures.

Thanks to Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay for image.