What is Opt-Out?
Opt-Out is the user’s or organization’s act of indicating that they do NOT want their data processed.
Why Opt-Out?
The most important aspect of this blog is for you to learn how to control who has access to your data.
What is the first step for any thief?
RECONNAISSANCE
Reconnaissance is the first step of a hacker’s process. Targeting your organization requires a period of gathering information about its users, how they browse, and what they look at. The more specific the reconnaissance data is, the more detailed the social engineering is that can be used against a target. To effectively lower your organization’s profile to attacks, we need to outline a few general concepts along with applying specific tactics that can be used to lower the amount of information that is collected from your browsing.
This is why you need to Opt-Out!
What is the difference between Opt-In and Opt-Out in data privacy?
When we talk about data in this section, we are talking about your data.
Data privacy laws are based on two main tends – Opt-In and Opt-Out. These options describe internet users’ actions concerning their personal data when accessing a website or an app. Accepting cookies, requesting to be forgotten, and going through the lists of advertisers are the options that frequently interrupt your day. Generally, the United States has an “Opt-Out” privacy consent condition for your data, whereas most other countries, particularly Europe, have an “Opt-In” privacy consent condition.
What does ‘Opt-In’ and ‘Opt-Out’ mean for your business?
Organizations are required to comply with the data protection laws of the country where your business is located, and the data protection laws where your users are located. Most online businesses need to comply with more than one data privacy law — they never know where the next user may be located.
Opt-In:
In data privacy, Opt-In means the power to control how your data is used rests with YOU. You choose to share your information – or not – with an organization. If you don’t actively give the green light, your data is off-limits.
Opt-Out:
The Opt-Out approach takes a different tack on data privacy. Unlike Opt-In, where you actively choose to share your information, Opt-Out assumes that you consent to sharing your data unless you specifically say that you do not want to share your data.
Think of it this way:
- Websites: No need for pop-up consent banners before activating cookies. Data collection starts the moment you arrive, unless you specifically tell them otherwise.
- Email Marketing: Companies can send you emails even if you haven’t explicitly signed up. It’s up to you to unsubscribe if you don’t want the messages.
- Analytics: Tools like Google Analytics can track your online footprints without your permission beforehand. However, you can adjust settings or install browser extensions to Opt-Out later.
How can I optimize data privacy in an Opt-Out situation?
Your data is used to set up advertisements that apply to you, monitor browsing behavior, and a host of other items to assist vendors with targeting their product development and sales to YOU. In the past, most internet users never thought there would be a need to protect their data, but this is no longer true.
A study showed that more that 30% of our browsing traffic is used by vendors, advertisers, and ad profilers. That data extraction is using your bandwidth that you purchased to understand your behavior and send you advertisements.
More importantly, the data that is being exfiltrated from your laptop can be used as an attacker’s reconnaissance on your organization.
The “Principle of Least Privilege”
Applying the Principle of Least Privilege to your endpoint internet traffic can lower your risk.
What IS the Principle of Least Privilege?
The Principle of Least Privilege is an information security concept which maintains that a user or entity should only have access to the specific data, resources, and applications needed to complete a required task.
In the same way that advertisers can learn your browsing behavior, hackers use a variety of different tools to collect data about you, your behavior, and your network. They then use this data to assemble a malware package based on this data to inject malware into your organization. Stopping this data from getting out is smart and efficient, because it is not part of the traffic that you need to get your tasks completed.
This is applying the cyber security “Principle of Least Privilege” to the data leaving your device. You only allow the data that is required for you to get your tasks completed.
How to Stop Data Exfiltration from Your Computer?
Stygian Vortex Security Consultants uses a tool called BlackFog ADX to stop ad traffic and any data going out to sites on the internet that might be questionable sites or not required for your uses.
Great, so what can I do with this product?
After signing a partnership agreement with BlackFog, the Stygian Vortex Security Consultants team began thinking about the best way to approach the market with this product. What we found with this product and its lightweight endpoint agent is this:
- BlackFog blocks your device’s advertisement and ad profiling traffic. Starting off as a privacy tool in 2015, BlackFog stops unnecessary data from leaving your endpoint. This is the use of the “Principle of Least Privilege” for the data leaving the protected endpoint. Stopping unnecessary data from leaving your laptop effectively lowers your profile on the internet making it less of a target to begin with.
- BlackFog is a global leader in ransomware tracking and utilizes this data to tune the probability of locations where the attackers will exfiltrate your data.
- BlackFog does not read the data in the packets and blocks the exfiltration of your data to the locations that are used by cyber criminals and other non-required data processing. This is where the attack chain gets disconnected. When malware executes on the endpoint, it calls back to its command-and-control location. The control of the malware by the attacker does not work when BlackFog automatically blocks this connection. The malware stays in place, it never gets to steal your data, and you are notified that an attack was blocked so the operations team can scan the endpoint to get rid of the malware.
Stygian Vortex Security Consultants and BlackFog want to lower your cyber risk quickly.
If you’re concerned about who has access to your data, reach out to Stygian Vortex Security Consultants to start a conversation.