Why is it Important to Protect your Personal Information?

Last Updated on 2 years by Touhid

The personal information can easily compromise by a hacker or unauthorized access. If you know that what type of information is to keep private and why is it important to protect your personal information then you will take some preventive action to protect your information from unauthorized access.

You can reduce your risk of identity theft by protecting your personal information. There are much information about you but most of the information need to keep private, which are as follows:

• Your name
• Personal ID numbers (Social Security Number, Driver’s license number, Passport number, Employee ID number, Taxpayer ID number, Bank account number etc.)
• Your addresses (Mailing and Permanent )
• Vehicle ID Numbers
• Phone numbers
• Email address

Why is it important to protect your personal Information?

Here, we have mentioned the top 6 reasons that why is it important to protect your personal information, which are as below:

1. To Protect from Malware
2. To protect from Phishing
3. To Prevent identity theft
4. To Protect Financial information
5. To protect Employability
6. To maintain the Business’s Reputation

1. To Protect from Malware

Malware is a type of software program which is designed to basically infect your computer and often used to steal your personal information such as your details, family information, financial information and more. There are number of ways that a hacker can access your computer, such as:

A. Send malicious email

It is one of the most common ways of spreading malware in your computer. Hacker will send you an email with an attachment file, which may contains malware. Once the attachment file is opened, then the malicious software will infect to your computer.

B. Using Adware

Adware is a software program that is designed to display advertisements up on your computer screen within a web browser which redirect you to an advertising websites and collect personal information about you.

C. Using Spyware

Spyware is types of malware which installed in user’s computer and collects sensitive information such as personal information, login credentials, credit card details etc.

It can be installed as a hidden component of original software packages or can be install as traditional malware such as deceptive ads, email, instant messages and more.

So, it can say that, malware is is harmful to users and their computing systems. That’s why it is very important to protect your personal information form malware attacks.

2. To protect from Phishing

Why is it important to protect your personal information?  It is very important to protect our personal information from phishing attacks. Phishing is a type of social engineering attack which attempt to gain your sensitive and confidential information such as your personal information, usernames, passwords, credit card information and more.

There are many ways that an attacker can sends phishing emails to your email in order to steal your personal information. Deceptive phishing is one the most common or traditional phishing techniques to steal personal information.

A. Deceptive phishing Technique

In this technique, victim will receive an email from hacker and the email may contain a suspicious URL link. When the victim clicks on that link then he/she will redirect to another vulnerable website and asking you to send your personal information.

So, in order to protect your sensitive information, you will never click on that type of suspicious URL link and it is better to know phishing attack and how to prevent from phishing attacks.

3. To Prevent Identity Theft

Identity theft is the type of cyber crime that stealing your personal information such as like your name, address, social media details and email address.

It occurs when someone uses your identity or personal information such as your name, driving license, or social security number without your permission to commit a crime or fraud. Identity theft can affect your financial loss, damage to your credit, emotional distress, your personality and more.

Why is it important to protect your identity? So, to protect your personal information you have to prevent Identity theft. There are different ways that you can prevent identity theft, which are as follows:

• Make sure you are using a strong password that has at least 10 characters (including a mix of lower and upper case letters, numbers and symbols)
• When you’re online and visiting websites, you have to ensure that sites are secure by Secure Socket Layer (SSL)
• Check your financial transactions regularly
• Careful about online shopping
• Use your own computer
• Be careful about downloading the software or apps
• Secure your confidential documents

4. To Protect Financial Information

Cyber criminals can access your banking or financial information and make unauthorized withdrawals, purchases, and transfers money to others account.

Every day we hear of new risks about our financial information so it is more important to protect our financial information from cyber criminals. Although financial websites are encrypted, there are also some tips which may ensure your money is as safe as possible:

• Don’t share your banking information with anyone
• Use strong and unique Password
• Enable 2-factor authentication
• Only make online purchases from secure sites
• Never save your payment information online
• Maintain your computer security
• Log out completely

5. To Protect Employability

If you want to build a successful career and keep your reputation, efficiencies then you should never provide your personal information that might negatively influence a prospective employer.

You have to be very careful that your employer must not disclose your personal information to a third party, unless you have been informed about this and given your consent.

6. To Maintain the Business’s Reputation

To maintain the business’s reputation is last reason why it is very important to protect your personal information? If you failing to protect your customers’ personal data then it can affect customer’s trust in your business brand because trust is a key factor in consumers’ purchasing decisions. So, you have to protect customer’s personal information for your business reputation.

Finally, it is very important to protect your personal information from hackers or unauthorized access. We have mentioned some reason why is it important to protect your personal information. Hope the article will be helpful for you!