![]() ![]() Even if you don’t want to go all the way, you should still make sure you have your social media privacy settings locked down-here’s a detailed guide for how to do it on Facebook-and delete data in your social media profiles that you no longer want or need there. If you’re feeling bold, use this step-by-step guide to delete your data and accounts from all the top social networks. And if an account is deactivated, the company that manages it might still keep the data from it on record, but criminals won't be able to figure out the credentials for the account, log in, and, say, use a credit card on file to go on a shopping spree. For example, a fitness app that you haven't thought about in months could be tracking your steps, heart rate, or even your whereabouts without you realizing. Closing an account doesn't necessarily mean that a company deletes all your data or eliminates the basic things it knows about you-data handling procedures should be laid out in an app's terms of service-but it keeps the account from staying active and potentially continuing to collect data. Instead of just deleting the app from your phone, make sure you clean out and close your account with the app developer so it retains the smallest amount of data possible about you. On Google, tap the Menu button, then Account, then Subscriptions. On iOS, got the App Store, tap Apple ID, then View Apple ID, then Subscriptions. "Is there banking or credit card account information? Tax returns? Passwords? Medical or other personal data? Personal photos? Sensitive corporate information? … Depending on what kind of information an attacker can find, he or she may be able to use it maliciously."įinding which accounts you still have active is easy enough. "Think of the information you have saved," the United States Computer Emergency Readiness Team notes. If you can, ask the sender or recipient of those emails to delete them too. You should also somewhat regularly search your email for the last four digits of your Social Security number and delete any messages it, or the full number, appears in. ![]() ![]() Search for an old landlord's name, for instance, to delete any emails you sent them, since those are more likely to contain personal information like tax forms or pay stubs. You can bulk-delete everything from before a certain date or everything from a particular contact. You should also take advantage of email search features (especially on Gmail) to comb through your old messages. Once you’ve Marie Kondoed the crap out of your devices and data, take a step back and think about what you might be forgetting. "But we accumulate massive amounts of it, and some of it can be harmful if it gets lost or stolen." "The physical presence of data is so small that sometimes we don’t think about it as being clutter," says Michael Kaiser, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance. So the less there is out there, the better off you are. Your devices can be lost or stolen (or hacked), and big companies can suffer data breaches that incidentally expose your information. Saving data that you want or that will someday come in handy is sort of the whole point of the digital revolution, but holding on to accounts and files that you don't want anymore needlessly exposes you to all sorts of risks. Most people have old email accounts floating around, forgotten thumb drives in a drawer, and years-worth of crap in a downloads folder. Here's an easy one: Clean up your digital junk. But with new threats popping up all the time, you may be looking for other steps you can take to protect yourself. Basically, you're acing Personal Cybersecurity 101. And you've set up two-factor authentication on every account that offers it. You're on the lookout for phishing emails. You're using strong and unique passwords. ![]()
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