What is being done to protect this information?
Businesses that handle data belonging to their customers are being scrutinized more and more with the arrival of regulatory changes such as the EU's General Data Protection Regulation, designed to create a level playing field and stipulate adequate security measures to protect consumer privacy and data.
Companies will often encrypt your information as part of the process, which is a way to encode information to make it unreadable by unauthorized parties.
One way this is achieved is by using SSL and TLS certificates that support encryption on website domains. While usually a paid service, Let's Encrypt also offers free SSL/TLS certificates to webmasters who wish to improve their websites' security. (Unfortunately, this has also led to the adoption of SSL by fraudsters.)
Apple, Google, and Mozilla have gone against a CA/B Forum ballot and have decided to reduce the lifespan of TLS certificates to 398 days, starting September 1.
End-to-end encryption is also becoming more popular. This form of encryption prevents anyone except those communicating from accessing or reading the content of messages, including vendors themselves.
Following Snowden's disclosure of the NSA's mass surveillance activities, end-to-end encryption has been widely adopted by many online communication services. With a recent shift to working from home practices prompted by COVID-19, this has expanded to include video conferencing tools.
Privacy advocates may cheer, but governments and law enforcement agencies have not rejoiced at the trend -- and a political battlefield has emerged between tech vendors and governments that are attempting to enforce the inclusion of deliberate backdoors into encrypted systems.
It is up to us to make use of any privacy-enabling technology we have at hand.
Below are some simple steps to get you started:
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Avoid using Public Wi-Fi as much as possible.
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Use TOR as much as possible.
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If you are more comfortable using Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft Edge, or another browser, then keep clearing the cookies stored on your system regularly. Else, make some changes in these browsers that they don't store cookies…
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You should not hand over any important information to websites without HTTPS enabled. The most important thing to remember is while HTTPS is best used by default in general browsing, when it comes to online purchases it is crucial to protecting your payment details from eavesdropping and theft.
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Consider using an alternative search engines such as DuckDuckGo, Qwant, and Startpage because they do not record your search history and block advertising trackers.
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Make a good use of following browser plugins:
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HTTPS Everywhere
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NoScript Security Suite
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Disconnect
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Facebook Container
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Blur
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Privacy Badger
This Article Was Written & published by Meena R, Senior Manager - IT, at Luminis Consulting Services Pvt. Ltd, India.
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