Home topics technology Security Tech Security Getting smarter: why it pays to protect yourself and your data online in 2019 Michael Warnock February 15, 2019 Once upon a time, it was the stuff of espionage and thriller films – a la Tron, Enemy of the State and The Bourne Ultimatum. These days, hacking and data theft are in the mainstream and in our faces, what seems like every other day. Last year’s news agenda was heavy on stories of internet fraud, industrial scale data breaches and scandals featuring social media companies allowing third parties to harvest and analyse the personal data of millions of unsuspecting members. At the same time, individuals are becoming increasingly aware their personal information is valuable and failure to protect it can leave them vulnerable in a range of ways. What’s it worth? We do it often and often we do it mindlessly. Entering personal information – names, email addresses, dates of birth, banking details – into online sites and assume the system is par for the course in the digital era. Many of us conduct a plethora of transactions online – everything from booking holidays to buying pet food – all of which require us to entrust our data to third party systems we hope are legitimate and secure. So, what’s personal data actually worth to hackers and cyber-criminals who seek to use it for illegal purposes or illicit gain? The answer is, it depends. One recent study put the value of a stolen driver’s