What is your digital identity, why does it matter and how can it be exploited

Your digital identity encompasses a trail of data points (digital footprint) you leave behind whenever you go online, information that can be traced back to the real you.

While digital identities include many static elements such as name, date of birth, and biometrics, users continue to expand their digital personas with every click, account creation, or purchase.

Below you can find some examples of the type of information your digital identity or footprint may contain:

• Online shopping information: email address, physical address, phone number, credit card details, purchase lists and product search history
• Social media information: all of your posts, media files (including deleted videos and photos), sent/received messages, files you shared/received, phone contacts, email addresses, likes and interests
• Citizenship information: social security, passport and ID numbers, home address, phone number, age and ethnicity, medical records, tax records, bank accounts, household information and family relationships, criminal records and fingerprints
• Smartphone information: all media files (photos and videos), contact lists, biometric data (fingerprints and facial features), location data and history, phone call and text message history, applications and downloaded files.

Why your digital identity matters

In an inter-connected world, the combined data that makes up your digital identity has become a highly profitable commodity for many third parties, including:

• Marketing companies and big data companies that aim to increase consumer online spending
• Government organizations that abusively monitor and control citizens
• Political organizations that want to influence voting preferences
• Online stalkers or abusive ex-partners who gather information to harass their victims
• Fraudsters and cybercriminal groups

Speaking of the latter, these malicious individuals continuously scour the web for your data to better target you with social engineering schemes, steal your identity, commit fraud or ruin your online reputation.

They can easily get a hold of your information too, whether through a data breach, phishing scheme or specially designed tools that scrape users’ publicly available data online platforms. If they’re not using stolen data to directly target you, cybercriminals set up specialized dark web marketplaces where they can sell your data to other digital miscreants.

What you can do to protect your identity from misuse:

• Reduce the amount of information found about you online, delete any sensitive data and make online profiles private. Think twice before posting on social media so you don’t overshare unnecessary information
• Be wary of phishing and malicious attachments. Never access links from unverified sources or download files you haven’t solicited.
• Use strong and unique passwords for online accounts to safeguard your finances, identity and reputation
• Keep devices and software up to date to make your devices less vulnerable to attacks.
• Monitor your digital identity for any leaks so you can immediately react to potential threats and privacy risks
• Never ignore a data breach notice or letter
• Use a security solution to prevent malicious attacks, phishing and fraud
• Use an identity protection tool to find out the extent of your digital identity, monitor for leaks and enhance your online privacy and security

Worried about how much of your private information is on the internet and vulnerable to theft or misuse?

With Bitdefender’s Digital Identity Protection service, you can discover and manage your digital footprint, and make more privacy-focused decisions to keep you, your online presence and your reputation safe.

Our dedicated identity protection tool combs the web for old and new accounts using only your email address and phone number. It allows you to analyze and manage your digital self, reducing the amount of data that can harm you financially or put your reputation at risk.

With Bitdefender Digital Identity Protection you can:

• Reduce your digital footprint by finding and deleting old accounts you no longer use
• Stay on top of data breaches and leaks with 24/7 data breach monitoring and real-time alerts
• Sniff our social media impersonators
• If your personal data happens to be part of a data breach, you’re immediately provided with easy 1-click action items to close up any weak points and secure your online accounts and identity.

Read more about or security privacy and identity protection solutions here.