Throughout the last few years, cybersecurity and cybersecurity strategies have drastically altered to combat data breaches and hackers trying to access private information, but did you know that one way it evolved was simply due to the overwhelming amount of information posted online by regular internet users?

Enter misinformation and disinformation; two tactics that are now employed very easily thanks to the plethora of "fake news" and faulty tabloid headlines that are written as clickbait to attract the attention of social media users and website browsers. With an abundance of all of this information on the internet and there not being any signs of incorrect information slowing down, we've entered a new age of fighting cyberattacks; by overloading wrong information.

Misinformation and disinformation, while similar, do have one key difference; misinformation is the accidental or unknowing spread of incorrect information no matter how 'almost factual' or beyond the truth the content is. The important part here is that misinformation is spread without proper intent to do so; users who share content with incorrect data or information are finding themselves misinforming the general public, or those who read their social media posts at least, which leads to the misinformation cause.

Disinformation however, is the spread of incorrect information and data with intent to do just that; lie or upload false statements for any means necessary. Whether it's for political intent, cybersecurity strategy, or because someone just wanted to lie over the internet, the act is classified as disinformation, something that has become very popular over the last few centuries through different means such as espionage and propaganda.

Disinformation campaigns have been around just as long as misinformation campaigns have been, the only difference being intent, but nevertheless both are methods that are being picked up as a cybersecurity strategy and defense mechanism to mitigate people from finding out the truth. Whether the campaign seeks to inflate profits, deflate statistics, or just simply cover up a piece of information, it's easy to say that these strategies have become modernized in the world of technology.

Data collection has to happen at some point, and what better way to know all about someone's interests, plans, aspirations, etc. than by updating databases and collecting new data when people are the most giving? Businesses typically see a staggering 73% increase in their data collection through the holiday season via new recipients for email lists, personal information from buyers clubs or one time purchasers and account holders, and more! Data collection in the holiday season can also be influenced over social media through different advertisement campaigns, cross-promotions, forms, and cookies tracking meant to see who likes what best before that insight goes over to companies so they know what demographics to target. These companies could have any type of product like gifts you might be interested in, or could just be collecting data on what you got or where you were for the holiday season so it knows where to reach you.

The truth is, there is all types of data collection, both on and offline, that occurs during the holiday season that it's almost impossible to track all of it. Through different social media advertisements, online email lists, in-store and e-commerce store purchases, and more, your personal data is collected by businesses and most of the time you won't remember signing yourself up for it.

With more and more people taking notice of their personal data being offered up on a silver platter most of the year let alone during the holiday season, it doesn't take a private investigator to know that something's got to switch. Why keep collecting data like this when there are new and improved techniques to generate your own data, synthetically and ethically? The more synthetic data generation there is on the market, the less we'll have to rely on gathering public data, having our own data sold, and budget or time constraints when trying to obtain a certain amount of data.

Learn more at ExactData.net

Last weekend, a team of private citizens composed of expert codebreaker (computer programmers and mathematicians) were able to solve what's known as the "340 Cipher", a jumbled series of numbers, letters, and symbols arranged by the infamous Zodiac Killer that was sent in letters to taunt police about the crimes he had committed. 

By running a codebreaking software to run 650,000 different simulations. the team was able to produce output which identified the correct sequence of characters. This begs the question, how much farther must AI be advanced until it can begin analyzing and producing potential solutions for ciphers and other types of cryptograms in an efficient capacity?. While it would have to be trained to look for the different kinds of cryptograms and pick the best potential solution based on parameters and context of the cipher, it isn't farfetched that it won't be long before AI can reasonably spit out these types of outputs.

Online today there are already computer programs which can solve types of cryptograms and ciphers; these online tools are however limited and need a certain amount of help to actually solve the puzzles they're fed. Additionally, like the software used to solve the 340 Cipher, codebreaking technology already exists; it's just a matter of refining and training it to become more efficient in its performances. 

Only time will tell how advanced we can become with our codebreaking and sleuthing technologies, but the more advanced our AI becomes, the better our odds of solving mysteries which were previously thought to be unsolvable.

Anything and everything can be found online these days; contact information, news articles, pictures of pets and families. All of this is the digital footprint you leave behind from visiting, creating accounts on, and posting on different types of websites, whether it be an online retail service, a social media website, or a subscription to an online blog or magazine. 
 
Simply put, your digital footprint is what you leave behind, a trail or record of some sort, every time you interact with a new website. It's easier to trace when you engage with a website like leaving a review for a product you buy, posting a status on Twitter, liking a YouTube video, or being tagged in a picture on Facebook. However, did you know your digital footprint doesn't just consist of the actions you perform on websites, but the way you browse them too?

For example, simply creating an account can be enough to trace something back to you via your digital footprint. Contact information of some sort can be found and traced back to you through accounts on many websites on the internet and what seemed like just giving away your email address leads many to now have more personal information such as your name, social media accounts, and anything that can be found on them.

Furthermore, hackers or anyone advanced enough to perform cyber attacks are able to steal and manipulate your browser cookies; cookies are normally used by websites to remember user information via their digital footprint, but if they get into the wrong hands, can be used by others to obtain your personal data such as browsing history and sensitive information like your account logins or even financial information.

So how do you limit your digital footprint? By being aware of the trail you leave; fortunately, many websites let you know if they're using cookies and you can easily opt out so your data isn't affected by the website. This will make it so you aren't profiled or 'tracked' by using the website, so you'll also see less advertisements pertaining to the data on the website you disabled cookies on. Additionally, by keeping any social media accounts and information private, or deleting them in general and keeping your internet connection secure, meaning on a private server or ethernet rather than public WI-FI, it gets harder for anyone to tap into your personal information and trace your digital footprint back to you.

While there is no perfect way to disable your digital footprint as just about everything is online these days, you may find it's quite manageable to keep your information private and secure so that your data doesn't end up falling into the wrong hands.