Data breaches, digital footprints, and understanding your online exposure.
Last class, we investigated a few security risks: phishing, keylogging, and malware. Before we move on, let us watch a short video to review and connect those ideas.
As you watch, think about which security risk feels most relevant to your own life, and why. We will come back to that question.
Watch for: the different types of attacks, how they target users, and what the warning signs look like.
Visit informationisbeautiful to see a visualization of the world's biggest data breaches and scroll from the bottom (year 2004) upward through time.
Fill in your activity guide as you explore. Notice the scale and color coding of each breach.
Use the search bar on the visualization (top right) to find a website you visit frequently. See if it has ever been part of a breach.
Every time you post, comment, sign up for something, or appear on a website, you leave behind information. That collection of information is called your digital footprint.
Imagine someone is researching you online. What information would they find? What could they learn by connecting that information together?
In the next few slides, you are going to actually do this search on yourself and record what you find.
Based on what you found, what bigger picture could someone piece together about you?
Visit aboutmyinfo.org/identity and enter just your gender, birth date, and ZIP code. See how easily small pieces of data can uniquely identify you.
After completing this activity, how has your understanding of your digital footprint changed? What steps, if any, would you take to better protect your personal information online?
Think about what you found in your search, what surprised you, and what felt uncomfortable to see.