Too often, victims of identity theft don’t realize how much of their sensitive information is floating around the internet until their identities have already been stolen. Social media, data leaks and other sources send all manner of information into the nooks and crannies of the net, and enterprising criminals can quickly scoop up relevant details to steal identities of witless victims.
If you are curious to learn what any nefarious stranger could find out about you online, you can use the following methods to discover how much of your personal info is available on the web.
Web Search
The first, easiest and most accessible way to discover what people can find out about you using the internet is to perform a web search. Using your search engine of choice — or perhaps two or three different search platforms, for variety — you should type your name into the search bar. If you have a relatively common name, you might consider including your middle name or initial and surrounding the entire name in quotation marks, which will return only results that include your entire name.
In your web search results, you are likely to find your own social media pages, and you may find any blogs or other types of content that you have created and published online. Though search engines are unlikely to show you any sensitive data that has been leaked in data breaches and other types of cyber attack, regularly performing a web search of your name can help you determine what other regular people — like prospective employers and potential friends and romantic partners —might find when they look you up. It might be wise to set an alert on your name, so search engines will email you when a new web page appears relevant to you.
Social Media
Every few months, you should take the time to explore your own social media pages as though you were an outsider. You should read your bios, scroll through your pictures, pay attention to your tags and more to glean as much information about yourself as you can. You might be surprised about how much of your life you can piece together by what you yourself have willingly posted to social networks.
On one hand, you want to share your life with your friends and family via social media, but on the other hand, you don’t want to give identity thieves any help in committing fraud against you. You might consider changing your profile names to a variation of your legal name and hiding some of the more valuable data, like your birthdate, phone number, home address and the like. It can also be wise to avoid posting in real time, which means waiting to post pictures of your vacation until after you have returned home, so neither identity thieves nor burglars know your exact whereabouts. Generally, the less information you allow on social media, either on public or private pages, the better.
Dark Web
Undoubtedly you have heard a bit about the Dark Web, which is a different internet where criminals and other unsavory characters spend much of their time. The Dark Web contains all manner of otherwise illegal marketplaces, not least among them places where identity thieves can purchase access to databanks filled with personal information mined from companies and personal devices during cyber attacks. An increasing number of identity theft events are taking place on the Dark Web, and knowing what of your information is present on the Dark Web can help you prepare for an attack on your identity.
However, most security experts advise regular people against venturing onto the Dark Web. Reaching the Dark Web requires a special browser, and navigating it somewhat safely requires some degree of knowledge and skill; more likely than not, you will end your Dark Web adventure with more than a few varieties of malware on your device. Instead, you can use identity theft protection services to monitor your data across the Dark Web. These security tools will notify you when you should put a hold on your credit, change your payment accounts or otherwise take critical steps to protect your identity from nefarious Dark Web users.
Because you likely don’t have the time or the expertise to find all your personal information online, you should outsource to cybersecurity tools that involve identity theft protection. Still, you should do what you can to limit what you post online about yourself, as you could be the most significant leak of sensitive data.