A more likely breach of your privacy than government intrusion is identity theft by hackers.
Data stored online is a like a smorgasbord open 24/7 of personal information waiting to be stolen.
LexisNexis Risk Solutions have released a survey showing how much critical personal info people are saving ‘in the cloud’ and how little they understand the danger.
More than 80% of the surveyed people were concerned about identity theft.
Despite that, here’s the kind of things the same people kept online:
- Tax returns and tax records (more than 40% of respondents)
- Bank statements (more than 40%)
- Medical records (over 35%)
- Student Loan details (27%)
- Mortgage records (24%)
- Brokerage and retirement fund info (over 18%)
- Passwords and PIN’s (an amazing 21%!)
If a hacker gets that info, you can look forward to wage, tax or identity fraud in your future.
For Microsoft Office users, the ‘take away’ is to password protect the personal info you save online. Office documents can be password protected from the File | Info pane:
PDF files saved from Office can also be password locked via the Save As PDF options: