Online Stalking
One in five Americans have come in contact with someone online who made them feel uncomfortable through stalking, persistent emails, and other aggressive outreach attempts, according to a new report by the National Cyber Security Alliance and McAfee. The study, conducted by Zogby International, also revealed that 39% of those victims reported the incident while 61% remained silent. January is National Stalking Awareness Month, a time to focus on a crime that affects 3.4 million victims a year. This year’s theme, "Stalking: Know It. Name It. Stop It." challenges the nation to fight this dangerous crime by learning more about it. The Stalking Resource Center of the National Center for Victims of Crime states that one in four victims report that the stalker uses a variety of technologies, such as computers, GPS devices, or hidden cameras, to track the victim’s daily activities. Here are some tips from McAfee that can help consumers avoid stalking incidents online:
1. Cleanup your online profiles:
Don’t include your address or phone number in an online profile. If you
must use a professional networking site such as LinkedIn for work,
include your company’s corporate address instead of your actual office
to prevent someone from knowing where you work. Think about each piece
of information you include on your profile and whether it would be
dangerous if it fell into the wrong hands.
2. Lockdown your privacy settings:
If you are a social networking user, make sure to set all of your
privacy settings to "private" or "friends only" to keep people outside
of your network from accessing your information. It’s also important to
regularly check the settings to make sure there haven’t been any changes
that leave your data exposed.
3. Be careful whom you connect with:
When using social networking sites, only connect with people who you
know in real life. A stranger who tries to "friend" you could become
trouble later on. Also, pay attention to the people your friends are
connected with to prevent your information from being shared with
someone suspicious.
4. Google yourself:
You might be surprised at what you find when you search for yourself.
Old website profiles, online forum posts, and pictures of you posted by
other people could all be unearthed in a quick search. If you find
information about yourself that you want removed, contact the website or
person hosting the content.
5. Don’t use an email address that is easy to identify:
Stay under the radar by selecting online handles that don’t include
your name, date of birth, or other details about you that a stalker
might easily recognize. Once you have an anonymous address, guard it as
you would your credit card or Social Security number.
6. If you have a personal website, don’t post your email address:
These days many of us have blogs and personal websites, but it’s a bad
idea to post your email address. Instead, use a contact form so that
people can reach you without having your personal address.
7. Be careful when posting photos online:
You never know where photos can end up when you post them online.
Someone could find them in an image search, post them to a website or
downloaded them to their computer. And if the photo contains information
about where you live or work, you could wind up giving a stalker all
the information they need to locate and harass you.
8. Create strong passwords:
Make it difficult for someone to guess your passwords by using a mix of
letters, numbers and characters and make sure that they don’t spell
anything. Passwords that include the name of your pet or some other
personal detail could easily be guessed, allowing an attacker to gain
access your account. The same goes for security question answers. Choose
hard-to-guess answers to prevent someone from using the password
retriever function to obtain your password.
9. Avoid using location-based services:
"Checking-in" to restaurants and other locations can be fun, but it can
also be dangerous if someone is stalking you. If you must use
location-based services, choose a unique username or alias that is not
associated with any of your other accounts to make it more difficult for
people to identify you.
10. Delete old posts or entries:
If you have a stalker, they will scour the Internet for any tidbit of
news about you so it’s a good idea to delete any old forum posts, Tweets
or status messages that include any personal details or information
that could allow them to find you both online and off. Find out more at www.staysafeonline.org.
