Phishing, vishing, smishing… Cybercriminals use a multitude of channels through which they try to obtain the personal data of their victims. Social engineering attacks have become sophisticated baits that are becoming easier to bite. But What if that information that is supposed to be confidential was available to you after a simple search in the browser?
Filtrations, or “leaks” as they are known in the cybersecurity environment (as they say in English), imply that internal information of a State, company or entity, which is not intended to be public, is made known. There are different types of leaks, from minor ones to more dangerous ones.
In fact, during the last three weeks, Argentina was the protagonist of major leaks. The first occurred at the beginning of the month, when a cybercriminal gave away in an underground forum and Telegram photos of Argentines extracted from a system related to Renaper. The second was when the same user uploaded a database of users of The nose, a widely used site that offers “strategic citizen information” and includes addresses, documents, telephone numbers and other data such as employment relationships and financial records. And last Wednesday another one from Renaper appeared.
Taking these cases into account, it is no small thing to say that Google launched a new function with the aim of strengthening the privacy of its users. The leading search engine on the market has just implemented a tool with which it is possible to locate personal data such as your full name, your telephone number or your ID that circulates on the Internet without any type of protection.
Below, how you can activate this Google functionality to remove this type of information from your navigation bar.
And it never hurts to remember what the dangers of data breaches are.
How the Google system works
This new Google functionality is expected to reach all users, although if you try to activate it right now, you will most likely come across the following message: “This tool is not yet available in your region”. The problem is that in Argentina it is not yet available, so it is likely that in order to use it you will have to use a VPN and change the connection location.
In any case, these are the steps we will have to follow to use this function:
- Open Google and go to the ‘Results about you’ section through this link: myactivity.google.com/results-about-you.
- Once in this window, select “Results to review”, press “Start” and click ‘Next’ below.
- Add your personal data that you want Google to track, such as your name, zip code, email, or personal phone number. Multiple entries can be filled out in each field. Finally, confirm that all the information you want Google to monitor was included.
- Configure how you want to receive alerts. You can choose between email notifications, automatic notifications (in the browser itself) or both.
- Finally, a pop-up will appear on your screen with the message: “We are taking a look.”
Google will notify you if any of the information you have specified appears in its search engine. It should be remembered that Google cannot completely remove your personal data from the Internet, but it can delete it from Google Search, to make it difficult for other users to locate it. and access your information.
The user himself may have provided this data or it may have been published as a result of a leak, but what Google can do is make it invisible to users for malicious purposes.