This is an article “How To Ensure Your Digital Business Privacy” by Marc Primo
In 2016, internet users from North America to certain parts of Europe experienced one of the most significant global cyber crimes in history. Domain Name System (DNS) infrastructure company Dyn suffered a series of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks by hackers that intend to create massive disruptions in online business. Hundreds of communication breakdowns that lasted for hours affected digital giants including Twitter, Amazon, Netflix, and PayPal, among others.
As everyone knows by now, the magic of the internet can be a double-edged sword that can earn small to large businesses profit or cause their downfall if efficient security measures are not in place.
Since the pandemic ushered in a new digital revolution wherein more companies, regardless of scale, invested in digital infrastructures, more threats have emerged from the woodwork. These threats prompted more startups to face the challenges by upgrading digital business privacy solutions that keep confidential data safe and encrypted.
In this article, we'll find out how online safety has become imperative in building a thriving digital business footprint and the steps you should be taking to secure your systems.
The importance of anonymity for personal accounts
Most business owners would want to take the anonymous route for their personal accounts when they migrate into digital systems and processes. Remaining anonymous can be as simple as creating an online pseudonym, signing it up for its email address and social media profiles, and acquiring domain privacy protection. The following steps will set your factual business contact information apart from your anonymous personal account.
Your domain privacy protection will give you assigned proxy data in the public WHOIS directory. Registering your anonymous accounts under free Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificates would be best.
While your proxy sites may seem counterproductive in your digital marketing efforts to build your brand and thought leadership authority online, its main objective is to keep your personal details away from public scrutiny and, most of all, far from the sights of cyber criminals who could use it for identity theft. Aside from this, you get to enjoy more privacy.
Keep your business's social media accounts, emails, and contact numbers free from anything that can lead to your personal information. Instead, populate them with organic and paid ads to push your digital marketing strategies forward. Just the same, refrain from contacting business associates and online networks using your anonymous accounts because no one appreciates unknown sources reaching out to them.
Keep your third-party content away from public platforms
Deleting your public content from your personal accounts and away from websites that collect cookies via a third-party platform is always a good idea if you want to keep your digital business private. Some platforms such as Facebook and Quora may require actual name registrations, which bars you from creating anonymous profiles. There might be no other resort than to be meticulous about what you post on such platforms, especially those with SQL or Structured Query Language tools.
At any rate, some ways and tools can help you remove your past content from other platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Tumblr without jeopardizing your accounts through features that allow for mass deletion.
The main thing here is that deleting your past content from your personal profiles and keeping them out of the public can entail several steps. However, no one can deny how doing so beats more hours of trying to block and delete spam messages that can flood your business's inbox in the future.
Thanks to platforms like the Wayback Machine, changing your personal account name won't do the trick if you want to remain anonymous online, not to mention the many archiving tools popular platforms are equipped with these days.
Keep your other accounts private
Staying off the online grid can demand certain sacrifices. If you want to stay in touch with friends and family, the best thing to do is keep your other accounts private to those you can trust. Posting fake names and profile photos is one solution, but if you are confident that no external user can search your information via Google, then all you have to do is make your settings private.
Always remember, though, that there are always workarounds for eagle-eye hackers. For example, if you set your Instagram profile to private, unlogged users will still be able to view your profile information – including your name, username, and profile photo.
However, for other prominent social media accounts set to private, most unlogged viewers will not be able to view any information regarding your account, including what content you've posted or your contact list.
Since more people today are open to sharing private information online, it's better to take the necessary precautions in safeguarding your accounts. Find ways to secure your images and review your posts so they won't link back to your business details.
It is also important to note that there will be times that even the most famous social media platforms will not report any data breach on your accounts, or it may take up months before you get informed. That catch means all the security measures you can apply are solely up to you, even to the extent of deleting your accounts for digital business safety over more problems in the future.
Prevention is best
Business owners should always be wary of sharing their private accounts with the online public. Information spreads fast these days, and while there are advances in online security technologies, you can never risk any chances because advances in cyber crimes are also continuously evolving.
The trick is to prevent any chances of being hacked early on when you launch a business. Once an information breach spreads fast, you might not be able to keep things under control in the long run.
Remember that what you share with the public when you open your business should always be relevant to what you are offering and nothing more. Building your thought leadership authority is a different strategy from simply sharing your personal life with the rest of the digital world.