But that's my business! How your digital footprint can leave you or your company vulnerable
Business & entrepreneurs
Comment | 23 September 2011
Just how simple is it to find out information about people online? From merely typing a few keywords into Twitter it is possible to piece together the names, locations, addresses, contact details, employment details and appearances of the names of an entire family from the traces of their online footprints.
What is an online footprint?
An online footprint is the digital imprint of a person’s life or company’s existence. This footprint not only contains the information you deliberately place online such as a LinkedIn profile, but also can contain an embarrassing photo you never knew had been taken or an ex-employee’s tirade against the company he/she worked for which they placed on an obscure blog and which has now had a cumulative impact.
In a recent article in the Wall Street Journal, CEO of Google Mr. Schmidt summed up the potential dangers in the murky past of a person’s online presence when he said, "I don't believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time," He predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends' social media sites.
How does this digital footprint affect me or my company?
In short, this footprint can make a person or company vulnerable to attack. There have never been so many people trying to gain access to a business’s or individual’s online footprint as there are today, and, sadly, it’s a fairly straightforward task to accomplish. They have the ability to access information about the person or company in question before the subject even knew of its existence – a terrifying prospect. The information these people find has the ability to damage an individual’s or business’s reputation - sometimes irreparably. This damage may be that an individual has their privacy significantly invaded or that a company’s now- tarnished reputation causes a sudden, catastrophic and apparently inexplicable fall in its share price.
Who are these attackers?
The obvious threat comes from journalists and various media outlets digging up embarrassing information, allegations and private information (such as directors’ addresses or a photo of an individual’s home). Other examples of attackers are competitors seeking any weaknesses, disgruntled former employees and NGOs scrutinising social media activity.
How do they find the information?
The channels of information are ever increasing. Journalists’ main tool is increasingly becoming social networking pages; if the phrase “according to his facebook page” is typed into the Daily Mail website, there are over 100 results. Twitter, message boards, Friends Reunited, blogs, official customer/fan sites, employee groups are just a few of the rich sources for attackers.
What can I do about it?
It’s a difficult task to balance the need for transparency online with the risk to reputation. Fortunately, preventative measures exist to combat online threats before they emerge: measures which can effectively safeguard reputation without destroying the need for openness. This vital range of legal, practical, technical and digital security processes will be a major theme explored at the Schillings Corporate Risk and Reputation conference on 20th October 2011.