Personal Data on the Internet: How They Can Use It to Attack

When browsing the Internet, a lot of personal data can be leaked. Our information is recorded on the sites we visit, the services and platforms that we use in our day-to-day life. For example when we create an account on a social network, on a site to buy online or any forum on the network. All of this could be made available to anyone. This makes the trace we leave on the network dangerous, since it could be used against us.

Data they can collect on the Internet

As we have mentioned, when surfing the net, when registering on sites, making purchases or using different services, we can leave a lot of personal information . Here we can include our name and surname, email address, telephone number and even the purchase details of the bank card.

Personal Data on the Internet

By registering on an online platform we are trusting that that site is legitimate and will not use that information for bad purposes. For example, when we enter a web page to make a purchase, the normal thing is that we put at least our e-mail, home address, name and surname, as well as the telephone number.

In case that site is attacked or there is some kind of leak , all that data could end up in the wrong hands or end up being public on the network. We have seen numerous such cases. But one of the most common problems is that we forget a social network or a forum in which we registered years ago. That service may have been forgotten, that it is no longer used by users, but our data is still there.

Keep in mind that our personal information has great value on the network. It can be used for different techniques that hackers use, as we will see. Hence, it is very important to avoid leaving a trace and control the information that we make public.

Robo de datos personales en Internet

What can they do with our personal data

If a hacker manages to get hold of our personal data on the Internet, they could have a wide range of possibilities to use it and profit from it. An example is the fact of being able to include ourselves in spam campaigns . At the end of the day they could know our email address, name and even our telephone number. They can also have information about our tastes, since they will obtain data from pages we have visited, stores where we have bought, etc.

Another very important issue is that all this could be used to launch personalized phishing attacks . This is important, as the probability of success is greatly increased. That is, it is not the same as a hypothetical victim receiving a generic email to log into a site and that it is actually a trap, to a more personalized email, with our name and even with a platform that we use as bait. They could be significantly more likely to succeed.

They could even supplant our identity . This is dangerous since they could create profiles on social networks with our data, add friends or relatives who would not suspect anything and, in this way, attack them as well. For example, they could do this if they send messages through social networks that contain malware or malicious links. That is why it is always important to detect bots on social networks.

Therefore, as we have seen, it is very important to prevent our personal data from remaining on the network on platforms that we stop using. You always have to protect the information and not take risks of any kind. Otherwise we could be victims of multiple cyber attacks.