## Risks and opportunities

Reading time
10 minutes

What you will learn
You will learn to recognise a few known risks in relation to privacy and security and how you can take action should they occur.

Summary
Information, especially personal data, is valuable. More and more organisations earn their money from the (legal and illegal) collection, analysis or sale of information. The speed with which we are able to generate, interpret and share information offers incredible opportunities, but also carries risks. If we know what the risks are, we will be better able to actually take advantage of the opportunities.

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## Can I have your password?

Of course not! You should never give your password to anyone. That is secret, private and definitely not intended to be shown to strangers. Right...?

In this video, it is totally clear that someone is trying to get the other person to divulge their password. And even when this is as painfully obvious as it is in this clip, many people will in fact simply reveal their password. Unfortunately, a great many other sophisticated methods exist by which individuals and businesses will try to figure out your personal data.

Several examples of this can be found on this page. You can suddenly be confronted with these situations, not only in your studies, but at any time in your daily life. So it is a good idea to have knowledge of the most commonly-used tricks, so you can protect yourself and your personal information as much as possible!

## Method 1: Phishing

What is it?

Suppose you receive an official email from your bank, politely requesting that you click on a link and fill in your account number and password for verification purposes.

Of course you’ll do that, why wouldn't you? However, a short while later, it emerges that criminals have taken full control of your card and bank account. Ugh... Just take a look at how big these criminal 'phishing' organisations already are, as you can see below.

The term ‘phishing’ comes from ‘fishing’. Criminals request data about your bank, passport or driving licence via fake emails or text messages. They use this data to steal money or your identity from you.

How can you spot phishing?

Use your common sense. Would your bank really ask you via text message to fill in your password or citizen service number somewhere? The most common characteristics of phishing messages, i.e. the characteristics by which you can recognise them, are explained below:

- The message is not directed at you personally, but begins with ‘Dear Client’, for instance.
- The message contains grammatical and spelling errors.
- Often, you will be asked to ‘verify your account’: a bank or education institution would never do this.
- The threat is made that you will suffer certain consequences if you do not immediately obey the message.
- There are subtle differences (e.g. a different extension) between the link in the message and the correct link.

Why is this important now?

In the first few months of your studies, you are not yet very familiar what the official communication from your education institution looks like. That makes you particularly prone to, for example, clicking on fake messages.

How can you best take action?

- Never simply click on a link or an attachment!
- Always think critically first: does it make sense for the sender to approach me in this manner? Would my bank/education institution/insurance company, etc. ask me for my password?
- If you're not sure, contact the ICT department via [contact details]. They can tell you whether a message is real or fake.

## Method 2: Lock it!

We can actually keep this very brief. Always lock your screen if you will be away from your computer or laptop, even if only for a quick visit to the toilet. Malicious parties only need a few moments to infect your computer for the purpose of stealing passwords, credit card details and other personal information, for example.

What can you do?

- Always configure a password that you must enter in order to resume use of your computer or laptop after reactivating the screen.
- As far as possible, use long and unique passwords for the various applications. It can also be quite useful to have a password manager in which you can securely save all of your passwords.

## Method 3: Be aware of what you are sharing

Let's say you have a tutorial again next Tuesday, but one of your team members is home sick with a serious allergy. In order to inform your fellow students that this will cause you to be delayed, you send an email about this to all tutorial members. Suddenly, all 80 students know what allergy your fellow student suffers from...

Or what about that Excel file containing your fellow students’ personal data you have been meaning to send to the hotel? While it was very considerate of you to hide all of the columns containing sensitive information, this unfortunately did not actually remove them. With just a couple of clicks of the mouse, the hotel could in fact still inspect all of that data...

What can you do?

You can prevent a lot of suffering by making sure you always briefly focus on two questions.

Anytime you want to share information in any way, ask yourself these two questions:

1. can I achieve my goal by sharing less information than I currently plan to share?
2. can I achieve my goal by sending the information to even fewer people than to whom I currently plan to send it?

By sharing as little sensitive information as possible with as few people as possible, you can minimise the risk of sensitive information being unintentionally leaked. And that is an important step in the right direction!

Want to find out more about the privacy legislation? Go right ahead!

Everything about the privacy legislation (GDPR)