What Is Digital Footprint? - Definition From - TechTarget

What are the consequences of a digital footprint?

Digital footprints are visible to a variety of entities, including the following:

• data brokers
• advertisers
• phone carriers
• internet providers
• employers
• cybercriminals
• hackers
• peers
• co-workers

A digital footprint helps people online identify the person that it belongs to. There are several effects of having a visible online identity, including the following:

• Access control. Providing information online lets users gain access to different applications and services. For example, people can use their email address, name and other information about them to create social media accounts, log in to a banking application or subscribe to an online publication.
• Online reputation. The information a person posts, says or otherwise leaves online influences how others perceive them. Seeing someone's browsing history, likes on social media platforms or online shopping history provides information about their personality and interests. This is often a benign consequence of digital footprints, but a visible reputation can be bad if the digital traces reflect poorly on the person. For example, an employer might see a derisive social media post that somebody made and choose not to hire that person.
• Targeted advertising. Marketers can use someone's digital footprint to market to that person based on their digital twin or digital identity. An internet user leaves digital traces that provide preference insights. Behavioral targeting uses these inferences to feed the user advertisements.
• Hacking. A hacker could use information from a user's digital footprint to exploit them through identity theft or attack other computer systems. Exposed usernames and passwords could give hackers access to user accounts, and visible email addresses could be used to construct spear phishing campaigns.

These negative consequences can affect entire companies, as well as individuals. Companies need to manage their digital footprint and be aware of how their employees represent themselves online by doing the following:

• identifying internet-facing infrastructure to determine the contents of the attack surface;
• auditing the assets contained in internet-facing infrastructure; and
• performing standard security processes, such as vulnerability testing and patch management.