Sensitive private information

It becomes increasingly clear for everyone nowadays, that our own privacy is currently under severe threat, more than ever. As we become increasingly dependent on computers for our daily work and life, these otherwise harmless and useful tools become deadly in the hands of unlawful people, by providing our own sensitive, private information to people and businesses that are willing to get a grip on it, in order to invade our lives and take control over the things we do or manipulate us in buying their products. Computer based spying is heavily used, and sometimes your competitors may actually hire someone to hack into your company network and steal higly confidential business information, and then deadly atack your business through using this information.

We also fall victims of marketing techniques, in ways we cannot really figure. Lots of companies, financial institutions etc, are constantly building customer databases, based on information we submit to them when purchasing products, applying for a credit card, etc. All this information is stored in their databases and then we are being constantly assaulted by various merchants that try to sell their good too us. We receive unwanted telephone calls, fax transmissions, and spam - unwanted advertising invading our lives and wasting our time and making life a lot harder.

Your computer constantly records a lot of private, sensitive information about yourself. Even if it is not primarily intended to do so, your computer still does this because this information is needed for its regular functions. Let's go a bit through the types of information stored in your computer that may pose risk to your confidentiality and privacy, and even harm you if it falls into the wrong hands:

Erased files. You may have erased several important files, days, weeks or even months ago. Even if they are deleted, you may be astonished that the information they contain is NOT wiped out instantly! This information may accidentally get overwritten through the process of creating another file, but this is not guaranteed. Also, in many cases there is even more than one copy of the same file residing in your computer, in deleted space. For example during the process of writing a document, several temporary files may be created - and although these files may eventually be deleted, the information contained in them or portions of it, still reside on your hard drive and can be recovered.

Email messages. You have received lots of email messages and deleted them. At many times, the information contained in these emails is still present on your hard drive! The same applies to emails you have composed and sent.

Websites you have visited, and not only the list of url's visited (browser history), but also full cached copies of pages you have viewed, including images and downloaded files. Yes all this stuff is also constantly being saved on your hard disk, as part of the normal functionality of a web browser.

Information about your computer usage, like when you have opened it, closed it, and activities performed - all this information is being logged as well.

Excerpts of data deleted from documents, or older versions of important documents that have been modified meantimes to meet certain requirements - some of this data may have critical effects on you, if it is discovered by someone else.

Information about software you are using, which can pose serious risks if you have chosen to use pirated software for example. Your computer configuration, which can then further be used by skilled people that know this configuration, to hack from outside into your box and monitor each move you make.

Your credit card information and other personal information, if you have used tools to quickly fill web forms which may come in handy at certain moments but are really dangerous for your privacy.

And this is just a basic list.... there are lots and lots of other things that can be found about you by analyzing your computer contents. Be warned - these are things to be taken very seriously, and if not, bad things may happen to you.

Things you can do to protect yourself:

Use software tools that wipe your hard disk unused space. This type of software overwrites (clears) unused data areas on your computer's hard drive, and therefore the information previously stored in such areas is not readable anymore.

Periodically empty your recycle bin, computer browser cache, temporary files, history etc. Use the Disk Cleanup tool under Windows to clean all these temporary files.

Do not let anyone near your computer. As possible, prevent anyone else than yourself from touching it. Use screen saver passwords to prevent other people from logging in while you are momentarily away (please note though that such measures will not work against skilled professionals that get a grip on your computer, and that such simple measures are working only against common non-technical people like your spouse, family members etc.

Check your running applications (task list). In Windows this can be done by right clicking on Task Bar, and then click on Task Manager. Write down the list of apps shown there, and try to remember it. If at times in the future you may find new and strange executables running that you do not recognize, this may be a hint that some kind of spyware program has probably been installed into your computer, and it may be recording all your computer activity and keystrokes.

Reformat your hard drive and reinstall software as often as you can could also be good. This is however quite difficult to do, especially today when many pieces of software are using protection measures and they may not work at all, after a computer has been reinstalled.

Use firewalls, antivirus and anti-spyware programs to make sure that unauthorised people or malitious worms can break into your computer. Also, make sure you keep your computer updated against all possible security threats discovered. If you are using Windows, make sure your Automatic Updates function is enabled - this is the only way to keep your computer properly update and protected as soon as possible, when a new security threat/vulnerability has been discovered.