Month: April 2022

Have you ever wondered what someone might be able to find out about you by simply Googling your name? From terrifyingly close-to-reality episodes of Black Mirror to the dangerous impact of social networking revealed in The Social Dilemma, everyone is slowly waking up to the constant infringement on our privacy that we face in the digital age.

Bad actors wield our lack of privacy to their advantage, using our publicly exposed information to target us. All of the data that you leave behind online is called your digital footprint. Your digital footprint grows when you post to social media, share an article, leave a review or comment, fill out a form using your personal information, etc.

What We Can Do To Help

We find and flag sensitive information that puts you at risk of being targeted. From there, we can remove the information from the internet, or keep it if it’s something you feel comfortable sharing publicly.

Why does the information in your digital footprint matter? Bad actors weaponize this data to target victims for social engineering, as well as theft, blackmail, exploitation, phishing scams, harassment, or stalking. Even the most seemingly innocent pieces of information can be used against you. Your home address, your frequent locations, where you went to school and the year you graduated, wealth information, even images of your pets and kids.

A Real Example of Weaponized Data

For example, let’s say you upload a picture of your dog to Instagram. A bad actor could zoom in on the tag on your dog’s collar, revealing your name and home address. They can use that information to open credit cards or take out loans in your name, intercept mail, steal your identity, or make physical threats against you and your family. Alternatively, maybe you use your pet’s name as a password, or it’s the answer to an account security question. A quick glance at your social media page could give away that password.

We’re not saying all this to scare you, or saying that you should delete all of your social media. Technology is a powerful tool, and we believe in a world where it is used to uplift and connect people, rather than target them. As technology is integrated more and more into our lives, it’s important to maintain our privacy and avoid being vulnerable to bad actors. The first step to a strong defense is education— now that you know the threat exists, what can you do to stop it? Hush offers digital privacy for individuals, businesses and families.  Our goal is to eliminate the sensitive, personal information from the Internet so you can live a more digitally private life, and feel safer online.

Categories: Uncategorized.

The seemingly frivolous information that we tend to share online can actually be weaponized against us. Facebook is the biggest culprit for getting you to reveal personal information about yourself and your loved ones. The ‘About’ section on your profile alone contains your birthday, age, gender, hometown, current location, occupation and workplace, where you went to school, and even lists your family members’ profiles. That’s a lot of sensitive information in one place, making your profile a goldmine for bad actors.

Leaving your personal details public makes you an easy target for social engineering scams and hacking. Even if your profile is set to private, you never know who could see your information, and capture or share it in some way. Let’s take a look at some of the pieces of info that put you and your loved ones at risk.

Mother’s Maiden Name

When you set your password for email and financial accounts, you’re typically asked a series of security questions. The answers to those questions help you retrieve forgotten passwords. Your mother’s maiden name is a common security question, which is all too easy for hackers to discover by searching social media profiles. It doesn’t matter how difficult-to-crack your password is if your security questions are accessible, and identity thieves don’t need a lot of information to make an impact. If you tend to use the same passwords for every account, they can access multiple accounts with the same credentials. Security experts advise using a combination of numbers and special characters, or simply lie—there’s no real reason you actually have to tell your bank your mother’s maiden name.

Pet’s Name

Yes, even your good boy’s name can be weaponized against you. Pet names are another common answer for password security access. Scammers could take one glance at your social media page and zoom in on your pet’s name tag, revealing your password or security answer.

Birthday

Who doesn’t love receiving well-wishes on their birthday? Don’t feel too special, though—your friends only remember because it’s probably listed on your Facebook. But did you know someone can guess your social security number using only your birth date and hometown? And once someone has your social security number, they essentially become you. They may be able to open credit cards, bank accounts, make purchases, take out loans, even commit crimes—all in your name.

School

Your child worked really hard to get into the college of their dreams. Once they get that acceptance letter in the mail, your first instinct might be to take a picture and post it online to celebrate. However, it’s better to keep where your child goes to school confidential. Bad actors can use that information in social engineering scams and phishing attacks. They may write a compelling email pretending to be a teacher, student, or academic official, and persuade you to provide more personal information or send money to them. There is also a physical risk present, such as stalking, harassment, or kidnapping.

If you think you may have revealed any sensitive information, it’s not the end of the world. Hush keeps you and your family safe from bad actors by finding, flagging, and eliminating items in your digital footprint that put you at risk.

Categories: Uncategorized.

It’s common to avoid making yourself a target for mugging or attack, like avoiding walking home alone at night or never flaunting cash in public. Yet we tend to lack the same hypervigilance in the digital world.

As corporate defenses against hackers have grown stronger, cybercriminals focus on individuals. High-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) are especially under threat, as their affluence and reputations make them attractive targets for theft, blackmail, extortion, and harassment. According to a 2017 study, 28% of HNWIs have been victims of at least one cyber attack. Perhaps more shocking is that a third of respondents had no cybersecurity plan in place. Anyone with a high net worth or valuable personal assets has the potential to be targeted, and those who are attacked suffer not only financially but reputationally.

Sharing Your Salary Comes With Consequences​

There are several ways bad actors can gain access to wealth and salary information. Company pay rates could be leaked by employees themselves, either accidentally or on purpose, like in the case of Microsoft employees who shared their salaries in a push for pay transparency. Bad actors weaponize salary or net worth information to select future targets for fraud, hacking, scams, or worse. Hackers use social engineering to gain a victim’s trust and discover sensitive information for blackmail, such as inappropriate texts or fraudulent company activity. Exposed wealth information also poses the physical threat of burglaries, car theft, or even kidnapping for ransom.

Bad actors don’t just go after HNWIs, but the people surrounding them, including staff. For example, if a staff member such as a personal assistant lists on their LinkedIn who they work for, hackers could break into their device to find the target’s home information—and not just the address, but floor plans and entry points, which can be used to plan a robbery. Similarly, cybercriminals prey on the children of wealthy families, who could be careless about sharing personal information on social media.

Even tech giants are unable to fully defend themselves against attack. Bad actors impersonate celebrities online for financial schemes, like in the Twitter hack of 2020 that targeted wealthy individuals. Hackers hijacked the accounts of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Kanye West, and Kim Kardashian, among others, and lured followers into sending Bitcoin payments. The incident occurred because of a social engineering attack that targeted Twitter employees.

Let Hush Be Your Secret Weapon Against Bad Actors

Generic cybersecurity programs aren’t a strong enough defense to protect families and businesses from bad actors. Hush takes a comprehensive approach by examining your entire digital footprint for vulnerabilities and accounting for financial, reputational, and physical risks. We find, flag, and remove sensitive information, like your salary, that puts you at risk of being targeted. We take care to find anything friends, colleagues, or family members may have revealed online too. Hush is the best defense to protect yourself, your family, and your business from bad actors.

Categories: Uncategorized.

Your home is where you should feel the safest and most secure. So shouldn’t you guard information like your address to protect that security? Yet we give that away almost daily, every time we fill out a form or sign up for something. Images of your home and your address are valuable information for bad actors, who can use them for criminal activity like scams and fraud. Let’s run through some common scenarios.

Address Fraud

If your current or past address is listed publicly, bad actors can use that information for address fraud, a form of identity theft. This uses the change of address process to reroute your mail to a different address. Once they’ve rerouted your mail, bad actors can use it to get additional information about you, such as your credit card info or your social security number. Your address can be used to open credit cards or take out loans in your name or steal your identity. Even if your address isn’t listed anywhere online, you may have revealed it unknowingly. For example, you took a selfie or family photo in your front yard, and your house number is visible in the corner.

Real Estate Photos

Once bad actors have your address, it’s easy to search on real estate sites and view interior and exterior images and information such as the layout, entry points, and floor plans. They can even see how much the home costs to estimate how much you make every year.

 

Bad actors can then create a map of your home and sell it to thieves to target for a robbery.

Vacation Photos

It’s summer vacation, at last—your toes in the sand, a cold drink in your hand, and the first thing you want to do is take a photo and post it on Facebook to make everyone else jealous. While it’s natural to want to document your vacation, it’s better to hold off from posting photos until after you’ve returned home and avoid advertising your travel itinerary to reveal where you’ll be and when you’re giving thieves the time to plan execute a home robbery. Even if your social media is set to private, you never know who might see it. For example, if a friend is reading your status update at a coffee shop, a stranger could see the post from over their shoulder. The wrong person might realize you’re away and take advantage of your home being empty and vulnerable. 

 

Hush safeguards your home information and protects your security by searching the web for vulnerabilities like your address and images of your home. Once we find and flag the places where your address is revealed, with your permission, we then eliminate it from the Internet. Sign up for Hush to defend your home and your privacy.

Categories: Uncategorized.