Digital Awareness

How many times while surfing on a website or social media have we come across a quiz, a game or a challenge or an offer that caught our attention? But are we really so sure that there is no deception behind it?

There are in fact a large number of online scams that try to steal our sensitive data, referred to as 'phishing'. Phishing has an assonance with the word fishing, which means 'catching' in English. Just as the fish takes the bait, the aim of the phishing scam is to lure users into giving up their personal data with one quick action, as we would say with unpleasant surprise 'and voila, our data has been stolen as if by magic'.

To date, phishing attacks have grown dramatically. This figure is very indicative because although awareness of the subject is growing, attempts to defraud are more numerous every day and in increasingly persuasive ways. Phishers can use these methods to build up a fictitious profile that will try to convince us to take the bait (phishing) to their demands and then access our data, for instance.

When we post a photo or video on social media, we take it for granted that it will only reach our followers.

But is this really the case? It really depends on how we decide to set up our social profile. However, a piece of content of ours could go outside our publication rules and be spread on other channels: it is enough for one of our contacts (follower) to download the photo in question and share it with others that we have already lost the management of our content. It is therefore important to be vigilant and aware when publishing online.

This issue is very important today, where everything we publish online constitutes our 'digital reputation'. Let us define this concept better: the term digital reputation (or online reputation or web reputation) refers to the reputation a natural or legal person may have online and is generally made up of the perception that web users have of that specific subject.

Every action one takes online, therefore, affects one's web reputation, since every behaviour and every piece of information found on the web contributes to forming the idea that the user creates for him/herself and the judgement that he/she makes with regard to a person. The vast majority of this information can be found in our social profiles and in what we post. It should be remembered that the choice of the network to which we want to communicate is ours.