How Important is Privacy to You?

Today in class we were talking about how whether on not online privacy is important to people. If it is important to us, what is the biggest threat? Email? Google search? Social networking? Online shopping? There are so many facets to online privacy and everyone will have different opinions as to what they feel is the biggest threat and why.

Over the summer, I received an email from what looked like Dalhousie Security informing me that my account would be deactivated if I did not update my information or change my password. There was a link at the bottom of the email that I was supposed to click in order to have my account updated, so I automatically clicked the link not knowing that this would have serious consequences. After I clicked the link, I was unable to log back into my email, the Dalhousie website, or even on to my BLS account. A friend of mine told me to check the address from where the email came from, and to my surprise it was a random hotmail account that I had never seen before. I immediately contacted Dalhousie Security.

Dal Security told me that a group of individuals from South America get access to university email addresses, send them all emails pretending to be the University, create a link for the student to click on and immediately they will have access to the email account. Once on student accounts, they go through every email looking for bank info, visa numbers, and family contacts of the student. They will then send out emails to family members saying things like the individual has been kidnapped and the family member must wire so much money over to them within so many hours.

I was on the phone with Dalhousie Security for over 2 hours rebooting my account, checking for viruses or potential ways that they could have implanted any secretive information, and warning me of the possible emails that could be sent to myself, or my family members. I was advised to cancel all my visa and bankcards, and change any passwords that could have been on my email account.

Email accounts can be greatly abused, especially if many of your emails are confidential. Many people don’t realize how much damage can happen with email accounts and how easy it is for people to gain access to your personal information.

What is your biggest threat?