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Cybersecurity Awareness Month: Digital Footprint

Every interaction you have online leaves a digital footprint, such as likes, comments, posts, as well as records of online purchases and transactions. When you know where your digital footprints exist, you can work to protect them.

Be aware of what information you have publicly available.

Social media is a place where scammers can learn information about you to attempt to contact you, or worse, steal your identity. What information do you have publicly available on the web? Review your LinkedIn, Facebook and other online profiles to see if your phone number, email address, birthdate, graduation year, anniversary date or other information is publicly available. Practice caution with the information you share online, and do not provide hackers with ammunition.

If you don’t use it, delete it.

If you have an app installed on your smartphone or a software application on your computer that you do not use, delete it. When apps go unopened or unused, they may not receive security updates and patches. Review the apps installed on your smartphone, and delete anything you do not regularly use.

Be careful who you trust.

Do not let accounts you seldom use store your information. OIT offers LastPass for free — a secure password management tool. Rather than letting a browser or website remember your information, trust it to LastPass.

Review your settings.

For apps you do use regularly, review your security and privacy settings. Privacy settings can sometimes be changed by an app developer. Whenever you perform an operating system upgrade, take a moment to review your security settings.

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. OIT is posting cyber safety tips throughout the month. For more information about UA cybersecurity practices, visit the OIT website.