EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

Today, the market is saturated with subscriptions, free trials, and sites offering accounts in exchange for access to their services. This often leads people to forget where and when they’ve given their email, name, date of birth, and sometimes even credit card information.

While inputting personal information in exchange for access to online services is quick and easy, consumers are also multiplying their likelihood experiencing a personal data breach as they increase the number of servers holding onto it. For sites that only have a person’s email address, this may be no big deal, but information regarding identity and banking pose a larger concern for consumers, if breached.

So what can your employees do to reduce their risk? Suggest that they add ‘digital spring cleaning’ to their list of good digital health habits. Have them close unused accounts to remove personal information from as many unnecessary or unused databases, thereby  reducing the number of vulnerabilities to the data. Asking people to take a few minutes to evaluate which accounts, sites, and app they still use can help identify what should be eliminated. These few minutes spent examining a digital trail every once in a while could save people’s data, money, and time.

For more tips on how keep up with data security online, please check out this article.