Whether using the internet for play or work, you want to spend your time online enjoying the peace of mind that comes with having a secure network. 

You don’t want to contend with someone taking your personal data — whether it’s credit card information, passwords, or bank account details — via malware or a data breach on your Android, Windows, or Apple iOS device. 

Fortunately, with some sensible precautions and simple steps, you can use your connected devices productively without worrying about cybercriminals and malicious software. This article explains how to stop hackers from getting access to your sensitive data.  

8 ways to protect your identity from hackers

You can take steps to protect your different computing and mobile devices and operating systems. These steps can be divided into technological solutions and the right awareness and information to provide a comforting measure of self-protection. 

It’s like learning karate for self-defense, giving you confidence as you negotiate the wider world (and hoping that you never have to use it). 

Use identity protection software

When it comes to identity protection software, McAfee provides a proven solution with our identity protection and privacy services. The protection includes alerts if your sensitive information is found on the dark web (up to 10 months sooner than other providers), personal data cleanup from sites gathering and selling your information, and an unlimited virtual public network (VPN) service that protects your privacy as you use public Wi-Fi networks. 

You’ll also get up to $1 million in identity theft coverage and hands-on restoration support to help you reclaim your identity.  

Use complex passwords

Simple, obvious passwords and passcodes (like your street address, your birthday, your kids’ or pets’ names, or “1234” or “abcd”) are easy for cybercriminals to crack, giving them unwanted access to your private data. 

The stronger your password, the better your protection. Some best password practices include: 

Use a different password for all your online accounts, including your email accounts, social media platforms, and bank accounts. 
Create a password that’s at least eight characters long, combining lowercase and uppercase letters, numbers, and symbols. 
Don’t use consecutive keystrokes, such as “qwerty.” 
Don’t share your passwords with anyone. 
Avoid entering your password on unsecured public Wi-Fi, such as at an airport or in a coffee shop. 

Regularly update passwords

It’s important not to be a standing target. Just as you should use different passwords for everything, you should regularly change your passwords. You should do this a few times a year (although some cyber experts say this might not be necessary if you have a long and very complicated password). 

If you have a number of passwords that you update often, it might be worth getting a password manager like McAfee True Key to keep track of them. Not only will you not be faced with remembering all your different passwords or writing them down (also a no-no), but it can also help you create and store unique passwords.  

The software uses the strongest encryption algorithms available to protect your passwords, scrambling them so no one else can access them. It’ll also suggest new passwords and automatically log you into your online accounts with just one master password. 

Use multi-factor authentication

Another important line of defense is multi-factor authentication (sometimes known as two-factor authentication). This system uses a password and a second piece of verification — often an SMS message sent to your Android device or iPhone — to authenticate your identity. 

This provides hard-to-beat protection even if a hacker has your password. Besides receiving SMS codes, there are also code-generating apps and physical security keys. 

Learn to spot potential scams

Thinking before you click on an email or text is a very important defense against phishing scams. Your bank won’t send you an email or text notifying you that there’s been suspicious activity on your account.  

Does getting a large refund from your phone company sound too good to be true? It is. Similarly, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) won’t text to tell you that you owe them money, and princes aren’t going to give you a fortune out of the blue. 

Internet users beware: If you’re not absolutely certain that the text message you received is from a legitimate and trusted source, delete it. You can always contact the business or person directly to confirm that the message is legit. 

Keep device software up to date

Any operating system or app you use is open to malicious cyberattacks. This is why you should keep all your software up to date with the latest versions. Software developers are continually fixing holes in their products and offering cybersecurity patches to make them as safe and hacker-proof as possible. 

Make sure your software, firmware, and security settings are up to date on your home’s Wi-Fi router, as well. You can often change your settings to allow for automatic updates. 

Be cautious when using public Wi-Fi

Sure, who doesn’t like to go to a cafe, library, or hotel lobby to use the free Wi-Fi? But security is often weak in these public networks. If you open your online banking account or access personal information, you may unwittingly be giving a personal invitation to eavesdropping cybercriminals.  

This is where the bank-grade level of protection of McAfee Secure VPN comes in, which automatically turns on when you need it and keeps you safe on public Wi-Fi networks. 

Use encryption

Even if your device does get hacked, you can protect vital information on your Windows or macOS system with an encryption program like BitLocker or FileVault. You can protect any hard drive you use, including portable ones and USB keys. 

It’s also a good idea to only shop at encrypted websites marked with the prefix “HTTPS” in their URLs. 

Discover how McAfee keeps you secure online

One of the best ways to surf the web in comfort while keeping hackers at bay is with the comprehensive solutions provided by McAfee Total Protection. 

Your protection includes proactive measures (meaning we’ll guide you to the best choices for prevention), early detection, and expert identity theft support.  

This means you’ll get identity monitoring, up to $1 million in identity theft coverage, lost wallet protection, premium antivirus software, a secure VPN, and personal data removal. In particular, our Personal Data Cleanup service will help find and remove your personal information from data broker websites and people search sites.  

With McAfee, you don’t have to be afraid of hackers. Let us deal with them.  

The post How to Stay One Step Ahead of Hackers appeared first on McAfee Blog.

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Your digital footprint grows with every internet account you make. While your old Tumblr account may be fun for reminiscing, dormant accounts are actually one of the most significant sources of user data on the internet. These accounts can be used by data brokers or third parties to access your personal information.  

To improve your data security, it’s good practice to remove public-facing information by deleting unused accounts. Simply put, having less personal data stored on the internet reduces the risk of theft and/or non-consensual data usage.  

Deleting, canceling, unsubscribing, or removing your account can be a long process, depending on the service. This article will walk you through the simplest ways to delete unwanted accounts from various social media platforms.  

Why you should delete old accounts

Deleting unwanted accounts protects your information and prevents the monetization of your data. Your internet accounts often hold personal information like your name, age, email, or home address. What’s more alarming is that some platforms may even have credit card details, phone numbers, and bank account information. 

When left unattended, internet accounts become vulnerable to being suspended or taken over by the platform. This means that if your accounts are left inactive for too long, you might be handing some or all of your data over to the tech platform.  

For example, even if you believe an old Google account doesn’t have any sensitive information stored, it may be linked to other platforms you use (like Amazon or Google services like Gmail and Google Play). This exposes all of these accounts to several data privacy vulnerabilities.  

Moreover, a recent survey found that 70% of surveyed adults admitted using the same password for more than one service. People who don’t use password managers or reuse passwords are at a greater security risk than others, as multiple accounts can become compromised at once. Whether the platform is now out of service or you are cutting down on your app usage, deleting dormant accounts will minimize security threats and safeguard your data.  

How to permanently delete old accounts, by platform

Every platform has a different process for deleting accounts: Some take only a few clicks to complete and others are a little longer. Companies usually don’t want a user to stop using their services, so account deletion pages are often hidden in a complex web of tabs that you have to navigate.  

In addition, some subscription services might require that you send an email to customer support to close your account. You can go to justdelete.me, an online directory that lets you access direct links to account deletion pages of various web services. 

Remember to download your personal information and data before pulling the plug on your account. Most platforms let you download your data before initiating a deletion request, which saves you from losing important details and files. It is also important to check whether your Google account is used for your YouTube channel or connected to other online accounts. 

To help you get rid of accounts you no longer use, we’ve broken down deleting accounts from some of the most popular social networks. The steps described below are for a desktop browser and may not apply to Android or iOS devices (unless specified).  

How to delete Facebook accounts

Facebook’s user privacy policy enables it to store a large amount of user information, including personal messages, posts, search history, name, age, birthdate, and even metadata from posted photos and videos.  

Follow these simple steps to delete your Facebook account:  

After logging in from your desktop, click the arrow in the top-right corner  
Go to Settings 
Click on “Your Facebook Information” tab 
Click on “Deactivation and Deletion” 
Choose “Delete Account” from menu 
Enter password to confirm 
Click “Delete Account” 

How to delete LinkedIn accounts

LinkedIn collects information on users and uses it for targeted advertising. As a result, it amasses quite a lot of your data, from professional details to personal preferences and even your online behavior trail.  

Follow these simple steps from your desktop to delete your account:  

Click on your profile avatar in the top-right corner 
Click on “Account Preferences” 
Scroll to Account Management and click on “Close Account” 
Select a reason for deleting your account 
Type password to confirm 

How to delete Twitter accounts

It’s simple to delete your Twitter account, but you’ll have to wait 30 days for your data and tweets to clear. To delete your account, you first need to deactivate it.  

Once you’ve decided to delete your account from the micro-blogging site, follow these steps from your desktop:  

From the navigation menu on the left, click on “Settings and Privacy” 
Go to “Your Account” tab 
Click on “Deactivate your account”  
If you don’t choose to reactivate within 30 days, your account will automatically be deleted  

Remember to revoke third-party access to your Twitter account to avoid having your account reactivated in the 30 days following deactivation. 

How to delete Instagram accounts

Since Facebook and Instagram are both owned by Meta, they share a lot of data for targeted advertising. You can adjust the privacy settings of your Instagram account from the mobile app, but you will need to log in from a web browser like Chrome to delete your account.  

To delete your Instagram account:  

Go to the “Delete your account” page 
Choose a reason you’re deleting your account  
Enter your password 
Click on “Permanently delete your account”  

Your information and data will be permanently deleted after 30 days and you won’t be able to retrieve it. However, completing a deletion process may take up to 90 days.  

How to delete Tumblr accounts

Tumblr has a fairly simple process to delete your account:  

Log in to Tumblr from your desktop 
Click on the profile icon in the top-right corner  
Choose “Settings” 
Click on “Delete account”  
Enter your email address and password to confirm  
Delete account 

How to delete Pinterest accounts

Follow these steps to delete your account from the popular picture-sharing platform:  

Select the drop-down menu in the right corner  
Click on “Account Management” from the navigation menu  
Select “Delete Account” 
Confirm when asked to receive an email with the final step  
In the confirmation email, click on “Yes, close account”  

Pinterest servers continue to store your data after deletion, but your information won’t be visible to other users.  

How to delete email accounts

There are different steps to deleting your email account depending on which email service you use. Backing up email data usually takes more time because of the sheer volume of data a mail account can hold.  

How to delete a Gmail account

Complete the following steps to delete your Google account:  

Open this URL in your web browser: myaccount.google.com 
Select “Data and Privacy” from the menu on the left  
Scroll to “Download or delete your data”  
Click on “Delete a Google Service”  
Click “Delete a service”  
Enter your password  
Click the trash bin icon next to Gmail  

How to delete a Yahoo account

Here’s what you need to do to delete your Yahoo email account: 

Open this URL in your web browser: edit.yahoo.com/config/delete_user  
Login with your login credentials  
Click on “Continue to delete my account” on the confirmation page  

Deleting your Yahoo account also deletes the linked information from Yahoo’s other services.  

How to delete an Outlook email account

Follow these steps to delete your Microsoft account on Outlook 2010, 2013, or 2016:  

Open Outlook on your desktop and select “File” from the upper-left corner  
Click on “Account Settings” and choose “Settings” again 
Select the account you want to remove and click “Remove” 
Confirm by clicking “Yes” 

Keep your identity secure online with McAfee

Leaving old information scattered across the internet makes you susceptible to identity theft. There are multiple ways to keep your identity and data secure online, including McAfee’s Total Protection plan.  

Total Protection lets you choose from multiple affordable subscription models that provide comprehensive security against identity theft and potential data breaches and offers web protection and several related benefits. In addition, having access to 24/7 online security experts and a 30-day money-back guarantee make the Total Protection plan an easy, reliable, and safe choice. You can also have peace of mind with McAfee’s Personal Data Cleanup feature where our teams will work to find your personal information online and assist in removing it.  

The post How to Delete Old Accounts Containing Personal Information appeared first on McAfee Blog.

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Private tech companies gather tremendous amounts of user data. These companies can afford to let you use social media platforms free of charge because it’s paid for by your data, attention, and time.  

Big tech derives most of its profits by selling your attention to advertisers — a well-known business model. Various documentaries (like Netflix’s “The Social Dilemma”) have attempted to get to the bottom of the complex algorithms that big tech companies employ to mine and analyze user data for the benefit of third-party advertisers.  

This article will help you better understand what information is being collected by tech companies, how it’s being used, and how you can protect your privacy online.   

What information can companies collect?

Tech companies benefit from personal information by being able to provide personalized ads. When you click “yes” at the end of a terms and conditions agreement found on some web pages, you may be allowing the companies to collect the following data:  

Personal data. This includes identity-related information like your name, gender, Social Security number, and device-related information like IP address, web browser cookies, and device IDs. Personal data is usually collected to classify users into different demographics based on relevant parameters. This helps advertisers analyze what sections of the audience interact with their ads and what they can do to cater to their target audience.  
Usage data. Your interactions with a business’s website, text messages, emails, paid ads, and other online activities are recorded to build an accurate consumer profile. This consumer profile is used to determine and predict what kind of content (including ads) you are more likely to interact with and for how long.  
Behavioral data. Purchase histories, repeated actions, time spent, movement and navigation on the platform, and other types of qualitative data are covered under behavioral data. This helps platforms determine your “favorite” purchases or interactions so they can suggest other similar content/products.  
Attitudinal data. Companies measure brand and customer experiences using data on consumer satisfaction, product desirability, and purchase decisions. Marketing agencies use this data for direct consumer research and creative analysis.  

For someone unfamiliar with privacy issues, it is important to understand the extent of big tech’s tracking and data collection. Once these companies collect data, all this information can be supplied to third-party businesses or used to improve user experience.  

The problem with this is that big tech has blurred the line between collecting customer data and violating user privacy in some cases. While tracking what content you interact with can be justified under the garb of personalizing the content you see, big tech platforms have been known to go too far. Prominent social networks like Facebook and LinkedIn have faced past legal trouble for accessing personal user data like private messages and saved photos. 

How do companies use the information you provide

The information you provide helps build an accurate character profile and turns it into knowledge that gives actionable insights to businesses. Private data usage can be classified into three cases: selling it to data brokers, using it to improve marketing, or enhancing customer experience.  

To sell your info to data brokers

Along with big data, another industry has seen rapid growth: data brokers. Data brokers buy, analyze, and package your data. Companies that collect large amounts of data on their users stand to profit from this service. Selling data to brokers is an important revenue stream for big tech companies.  

Advertisers and businesses benefit from increased information on their consumers, creating a high demand for your information. The problem here is that companies like Facebook and Alphabet (Google’s parent company) have been known to mine massive amounts of user data for the sake of their advertisers.  

To personalize marketing efforts

Marketing can be highly personalized thanks to the availability of large amounts of consumer data. Tracking your response to marketing campaigns can help businesses alter or improve certain aspects of their campaign to drive better results.  

The problem is that most AI-based algorithms are incapable of assessing when they should stop collecting or using your information. After a point, users run the risk of being constantly subjected to intrusive ads and other unconsented marketing campaigns that pop up frequently.  

To cater to the customer experience

Analyzing consumer behavior through reviews, feedback, and recommendations can help improve customer experience. Businesses have access to various facets of data that can be analyzed to show them how to meet consumer demands. This could help improve any part of a consumer’s interaction with the company, from designing special offers and discounts to improving customer relationships.  

For most social media platforms, the goal is to curate a personalized feed that appeals to the users and allows them to spend more time on the app. When left unmonitored, the powerful algorithms behind these social media platforms can repeatedly subject you to the same kind of content from different creators.  

Which companies track the most information?

Here are the big tech companies that collect and mine the most user data.  

Google. Google is the most avid big tech data miner currently on the internet because the search engine deals almost exclusively with user data. Google tracks and analyzes everything from your Gmail and calling history (for VoLTE calls) to your Chrome browsing preferences through third-party cookies.  
Facebook. Meta’s Facebook collects phone numbers, personal messages, public comments, and metadata from all of your photos and videos. Facebook primarily uses this data to fuel its demographic-based targeted ad mechanisms.  
Amazon. Amazon has recently admitted to storing many user data points, including phone numbers, credit card information, usernames, passwords, and even Social Security numbers. Amazon also stores information about your search terms and previously bought products.  
Twitter. Platforms like Twitter employ a “family of apps” technique to gather sensitive user data. While these platforms openly collect and mine user data themselves, they also collect information from app networks (like Twitter’s MoPub or Google’s AdMob) that include several other third-party apps. These apps choose to partner with tech giants for better profits.  
Apple. While much better than its competitors, Apple still mines a considerable amount of user data. While Apple’s systems allow users to control their privacy settings, Apple gives all of its users’ information to Apple’s iOS-based advertisement channels. The iPhone App Store is another place where user data is exclusively used to create customized user experiences. 
Microsoft. Microsoft primarily collects device-related data like system configurations, system capabilities, IP addresses, and port numbers. It also harvests your regular search and query data to customize your search options and make for a better user experience.  

Discover how McAfee can help protect your identity online 

Users need a comprehensive data privacy solution to tackle the rampant, large-scale data mining carried out by big tech platforms. While targeted advertisements and easily found items are beneficial, many of these companies collect and mine user data through several channels simultaneously, exploiting them in many different ways.  

It’s important to make sure your personal information is protected. Protection solutions like McAfee’s Personal Data Cleanup feature can help. With this feature, our teams scour the web for traces of your personal information and assist in getting it removed to enhance your online privacy.  

McAfee’s Total Protection provides antivirus software for all of your digital devices and a secure VPN connection to avoid exposure to malicious third parties while browsing the internet. Our identity monitoring and personal data removal solutions further remove gaps in your devices’ security systems.  

With our airtight data protection and custom guidance (complete with a protection score for each platform and tips to keep you safer), you can be sure that your internet identity is protected.  

The post What Personal Data Do Companies Track? appeared first on McAfee Blog.

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