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It’s Data Privacy Week, the National Cybersecurity Alliance’s annual international initiative to empower people and businesses to respect privacy, safeguard data and enable trust.
NCA warns: “Your online activity creates a treasure trove of data – from your interests and purchases to your online behaviors, and it is collected by websites, apps, devices, services, and companies all around the globe, and can even include information about your physical self, like health data”
A PureVPN privacy expert recaps some timely, helpful data privacy advice for consumers and asks: Are Your Security Apps Are Putting You At Risk?
Ifrah Arif, Product Manager at PureVPN, warns: “We all rely on an array of data privacy and security apps: VPNs, password managers, ad blockers, dark web monitors and more. Many people don’t realize that these apps can actually conflict with one another and fail the user just when they need them the most.”
“Non-integrated security tools from different vendors can actually drive ‘alert storms’ that put sensitive info at risk.
“Notification storms typically arise when someone’s using incompatible, non-integrated password managers, VPNs, dark web monitors, trackers, ad blockers and other security tools from differing vendors. The storm arises when tools roll out uncoordinated alerts and notifications to get the user’s attention. One tool mistakes another tool’s attempt to do its job as a threat, and sends users alerts. The resulting ‘alert fatigue’ often drives users to close their VPN or password manager, opening their devices to threats and exposing themselves to data theft and fraud.
The recent study “The Cost of Fragmentation: Measuring Time, Spend and Risk in Personal Cybersecurity Tool Stacks,” found that
∙ 44% of users receive overlapping alerts, and
∙ 38% of those receiving overlapping alerts say they just ignore them.
Arif notes that the best prevention is “using an integrated suite of security tools – a single unified platform. That way, instead of juggling multiple apps competing for your attention and overriding one another, you get a single, intelligent alert stream and a single place to act on it.”
Also read: How To Reduce Data Privacy & Security Risk While Working From Home
Image source: elements.envato.com
