What’s Doxing? | McAfee Weblog

Imagine someone publicly sharing your most personal details – your address, phone number, and intimate information about family members or colleagues – exposing you to a massive audience of over 1,000 strangers. Doxing, an invasive practice, has emerged as a significant worry in today’s digital era. The notion of privacy has become a thing of the past; what’s now paramount is the fear of actual harm in the physical world. What’s the risk of doxing? Learn how to protect yourself from cyberstalking.

Doxing, a term that refers to the unauthorized sharing of someone’s personal information, including their home address, full name, phone number, workplace, and other private details, without their consent, in a public online forum.

The term “doxing” originates in the hacker community, where it stems from the phrase “dropping dox,” or documents, with harmful motives towards the targeted individual. While the scope of a non-public information breach may initially appear limited to cellphone numbers and addresses, its severity can actually extend to include the unauthorized release of personal photographs, Social Security numbers, financial details, private messages, and other forms of more invasive attacks.

In the late 1990s, a phenomenon resurfaced on the internet’s early platforms: online vigilantism. The checklist contained the suspected individuals’ electronic mail accounts, cell phone numbers, and home addresses.

Throughout 2014, a string of high-profile incidents exemplified the dark side of online gaming, as individuals suffered from doxing due to alleged sexism and misogyny within the industry. Online game developers and journalists with feminine identities had endured a barrage of harassing messages and doxing threats, compromising their personal safety and well-being.

Recent high-profile cases of celebrity doxing have captivated media attention, highlighting the alarming realities of online abuse and privacy breaches that threaten even the most prominent public figures. Hackers allegedly compromised the email account of Selena Gomez in 2017, subsequently leaking intimate details about her property dealings in the Los Angeles area online. In 2021, shortly after the star’s house sale was made public through his tweet.

While doxing can cause significant harm to individuals, it is not inherently illegal. Occasionally, a doxer comes across publicly available information that they then disseminate widely to others. Since the information is a public document, sharing it does not violate any laws. A recruiter might potentially extend an invitation to visit the residence or workplace of the target candidate, rather than taking specific action.

It is illegal to access a computer system or device without the owner’s consent, regardless of whether the gathered information is utilized or not. While the debate surrounding doxing’s legitimacy continues to unfold, it is essential that law enforcement agencies approach each situation with a nuanced understanding, carefully considering the relevant legal frameworks and precedents when building their cases. If someone attempted to utilize your bank card using your personal information, they could potentially face prosecution for fraudulent activities and identity theft.

To protect yourself from doxing, heed these crucial precautions: Limit your online exposure by adopting robust passwords and leveraging secure technologies such as digital private networks (VPNs)?

To effectively protect yourself from doxing, it’s crucial to limit the amount of personal information you disseminate online. Protect sensitive details about your personal life, such as your child’s identity, pet’s name, or work information, by maintaining a safe level of privacy. Ensure that the privacy settings on all social media platforms and websites are set to their highest levels.

When sharing online, you should exercise caution in labeling friends, locations, and images, as this can inadvertently provide additional access points for data sleuths. Let’s learn together?

Firms known as knowledge brokers scour the internet and public sources to gather data on individuals’ financial records, credit scores, social media profiles, and more. Data brokers aggressively market sensitive customer data, allowing advertisers, corporations, and potentially malicious entities to acquire and utilize it for purposes such as identifying individuals without their consent.

With a mere click, you may be astonished by the vast array of sensitive information readily available to anyone conducting an online search. Knowledge brokers frequently possess sensitive information, including phone numbers, present and past residential addresses, delivery records, social media profiles, political affiliations, and other data deemed intensely personal.

While you can typically remove your personal data from many online service providers, they often make the process cumbersome and frustrating. Simplifies the process significantly. Enter your identification, delivery date, and residential address, and we’ll swiftly scan them across high-risk data trader websites. Will we then enable you to take it away?

By implementing robust security measures, you could significantly reduce your vulnerability to hackers and online harassment. Protect yourself extra by following just a few simple guidelines.

• Utilize complex and robust passwords of at least ten characters in length.
• Avoid crafting passwords that incorporate any phrases from your social media platforms (such as pet or family member names).
• Periodically update your passwords without fail – ideally every 90 days.
• Create unique and diverse passwords for all online accounts to ensure robust security.
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• Enable two-factor authentication or multifactor security for critical online accounts, such as Gmail, LinkedIn, Facebook, and online banking services.
• Don’t write down passwords; instead, store them securely for safekeeping.

Simplify password management by leveraging True Key’s innovative combination of a password manager and generator device, which utilizes industry-leading encryption to securely store and encrypt existing passwords while also generating strong, unique new ones.

When making purchases from kiosks or small retailers in airports, your personal data may be more susceptible to compromise by cybercriminals seeking to exploit sensitive information for their own gain.

A digital personal network (VPN) service, similar to those found in public hotspots, offers an additional layer of security by masking your IP address and shopping activities when using an unsecured network.

Cybercriminals relentlessly strive to obtain sensitive information on a daily basis. With McAfee+, enjoy the internet with peace of mind, knowing that our award-winning solutions are always by your side to safeguard your online world and the people who matter most.

Ensure seamless protection against real-time threats through advanced malware detection, containment, and eradication capabilities, while also scheduling on-demand or automated scans for files and utilities to maintain a secure digital environment. You’ll also benefit from a sophisticated firewall designed to enhance home network security and provide an additional layer of protection against cyber threats.

As we increasingly turn to the internet to manage our daily routines. Given the risks, it’s crucial to navigate both the benefits and the hazards.

Comprehensive cybersecurity tools like these can help safeguard you against scams, doxing attacks, identity theft, phishing attempts, and malware infections. We’ll further help safeguard your sensitive information from falling into the wrong hands by offering a Private Data Cleanup service.

With McAfee’s expertise backing you up, enjoy the vastness of the internet with complete peace of mind and unwavering confidence.