While initially, it was said that your online whereabouts do not define you as they only entail things that are mechanical such as your email address, phone number, IP addresses, and items of that genre. We all can agree that this has significantly changed with most of our lives in the digital space. This dimension has gained rather exciting attention. This all makes it much easier for most of our worst nightmares, “identity theft.”
What Is Digital Identity?
Though the concept of digital identity may seem complicated and somewhat tricky to understand, some information will give clarity.
Digital identity is defined as a network or internet equivalent that holds or consists of information about you. As we evolve through our digital journey, our life becomes that of our online and offline activity, as such events are surveyed via the digital domain. These pieces of information that entail your digital identity can be as minimal as a comment on various online mediums to big as sharing sensitive information like social security number or single user name or email address. These are called your “digital attributes.”
What Are Digital Attributes?
As the Internet of Things (IoT) increases every day by various mediums, be it applications, networks, or otherwise, the attributes also increase with this. While we have named a few earlier, here is a list with a few more.
- Social Security Number (SSN)
- Login Credentials (email address/username and password)
- Online Accounts
- Online Activity (Searches)
- Social Events (likes, posts, and shares)
- Comments made on articles or social media
Protect My Digital Identity
In the end, our digital identities are here to stay. As avast so humorously states it, “As long as your online Doppelganger exists, there will always be someone hoping to exploit it.”
Some steps or actions can put in place to mitigate or even prevent attacks or digit identity infiltration from happening.
- Invest In A VPN: Always use a virtual private network (VPN), as this software establishes a secure path between you and the server hence protecting your digital identity. See more in the article, why invest in a VPN.
- Protect Your User Name and Password: Often, advice not to share your credentials with anyone is worth obeying. This is one step in protecting your digital Doppelganger existence. Another step is implementing a password manager; this places secure encryption on your passwords and gives you the marvelous advantage of managing passwords for one central spot.
- Search Engine: It is best to use a search engine that is most secure. In most cases, users substitute with incognito web browsers.
Other Steps In Protecting Your Digital Identity
- Burn or shred documents containing sensitive personal information
- Limit sharing of sensitive information such as SSN
- Use unique and strong passwords on all online accounts
- Never share login credentials
- Secure home and workplace Wi-Fi networks