Digital self-defense is the use of

self-defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force ...

strategies by

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

users to ensure

digital security Digital security refers to various ways of protecting a computer's internet account and files from intrusion by an outside user or a hacker. Computers and the Internet Internet security involves the protection of a computer's internet account a ...

; that is to say, the protection of confidential personal electronic information.

Internet security Internet security is a branch of computer security. It encompasses the Internet, browser security, web site security, and network security as it applies to other applications or operating systems as a whole. Its objective is to establish rules ...

software provides initial protection by setting up a

firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spr ...

, as well as scanning computers for malware,

viruses A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's ...

Trojan horses The Trojan Horse was a wooden horse said to have been used by the Greeks during the Trojan War to enter the city of Troy and win the war. The Trojan Horse is not mentioned in Homer's ''Iliad'', with the poem ending before the war is concluded, ...

worms Worms may refer to: *Worm, an invertebrate animal with a tube-like body and no limbs Places *Worms, Germany Worms () is a city in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, situated on the Upper Rhine about south-southwest of Frankfurt am Main. It had ...

and

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is software with malicious behaviour that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user—for example, by violating their priva ...

. However information at most risk includes personal details such as birthdates,

phone number A telephone number is a sequence of digits assigned to a landline telephone subscriber station connected to a telephone line or to a wireless electronic telephony device, such as a radio telephone or a mobile telephone, or to other devices f ...

bank account A bank account is a financial account maintained by a bank or other financial institution in which the financial transactions between the bank and a customer are recorded. Each financial institution sets the terms and conditions for each type of ...

schooling A school is an educational institution designed to provide learning spaces and learning environments for the teaching of students under the direction of teachers. Most countries have systems of formal education, which is sometimes compuls ...

details, sexuality,

religious affiliation Religious identity is a specific type of identity formation. Particularly, it is the sense of group membership to a religion and the importance of this group membership as it pertains to one's self-concept. Religious identity is not necessarily the ...

email address An email address identifies an email box to which messages are delivered. While early messaging systems used a variety of formats for addressing, today, email addresses follow a set of specific rules originally standardized by the Internet Engineer ...

es and

password A password, sometimes called a passcode (for example in Apple devices), is secret data, typically a string of characters, usually used to confirm a user's identity. Traditionally, passwords were expected to be memorized, but the large number of ...

s. This information is often openly revealed in social networking sites, leaving Internet users vulnerable to social engineering and possibly

Internet crime A cybercrime is a crime that involves a computer or a computer network.Moore, R. (2005) "Cyber crime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime," Cleveland, Mississippi: Anderson Publishing. The computer may have been used in committing the ...

. Mobile devices, especially those with

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

, allow this information to be shared inadvertently. Digital self-defense requires Internet users to take an active part in guarding their own personal information. Four key strategies are frequently suggested to assist that protection.

Computer security

Computer security in this context is referring to

software. The ongoing security of private information requires frequent updating of virus and spyware definitions so that ongoing developments in malicious software cannot interfere with, or copy, private information.

Email Accounts and Usernames

Choice of Appropriate Email Account

The practice of utilising more than one

email Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" mean ...

account to separate personal and business usage from recreational usage is a strategy commonly used to manage personal privacy. The free and ready availability of email accounts from sites such as

Yahoo Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Manage ...

Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...

Hotmail Outlook.com is a webmail service that is part of the Microsoft 365 product family. It offers mail, Calendaring software, calendaring, Address book, contacts, and Task management, tasks services. Founded in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smit ...

allows the protection of personal identity through the use of different names to identify each email account. These throw-away accounts can be discarded or replaced at will, providing another level of protection.

Choice of Username

username A user is a person who utilizes a computer or network service. A user often has a user account and is identified to the system by a username (or user name). Other terms for username include login name, screenname (or screen name), accoun ...

is required to set up email accounts and to open accounts for various official, commercial, recreational and social networking sites. In many cases, an email address may also be utilised as a username. Usernames that correlate with personal information such as names or nicknames are more at risk than ones that are cryptic or anonymous, particularly on social and recreational sites.

Password Strength

is a mandatory security measure that accompanies usernames. The use of personal data to construct passwords i.e. family members’ names, pet’s names or birth dates increases the risk to confidential information and are easier to crack than long complicated passwords so

password strength Password strength is a measure of the effectiveness of a password against guessing or brute-force attacks. In its usual form, it estimates how many trials an attacker who does not have direct access to the password would need, on average, to gues ...

is a key strategy for protecting personal information. A password can be weak or strong:a weak password is ''cutekittens'', a strong password is ''?lACpAs56IKMs''. According to

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...

an ideal password should be at least 14 characters in length and have letters, punctuation, symbols, and numbers, where complexity is added by the inclusion of uppercase letters.

Managing Personal Information Using Privacy Options

Social networking sites offer greater security risks to personal electronic information because sensitive, private or confidential information such as

personal identifier Personal Identifiers (PID) are a subset of personally identifiable information (PII) data elements, which identify an individual and can permit another person to “assume” that individual's identity without their knowledge or consent. Identi ...

s are routinely used to create public profiles. Many websites give options to suppress the amount of personal information revealed through the customisation of privacy settings. However privacy settings can reset if changes to the website occur.“Protect yourself in the online, social network community”, Creston News Advertiser, 11 Feb 2011. http://www.crestonnewsadvertiser.com/articles/ara/2011/02/11/8044960708/index.xml

References

{{reflist