While privacy tools are primarily designed to safeguard personal information and maintain anonymity, they frequently provide security benefits as well. This overlap occurs because many of the threats to online privacy are also threats to online security.
For instance, tools that encrypt your data or mask your online identity not only keep your information private but also make it harder for malicious actors to access or misuse that information. Similarly, features that block tracking or limit data collection reduce the amount of personal information available to potential attackers, thereby enhancing security.
Many privacy tools include security features as part of their functionality. Ad blockers, for example, can prevent malicious ads from loading, while VPNs can protect against man-in-the-middle attacks on public Wi-Fi networks.
Example: Ticketmaster Database Hack
For example, in May a hacking group called ShinyHunters breached Ticketmaster’s databases and stole data from 560 million customers worldwide.
Using a unique password, an email alias, a virtual phone number, and a virtual credit card could have significantly mitigated the consequences of the Ticketmaster hack. Here’s how these privacy tools would have helped:
Unique Passwords
If you created a unique password for Ticketmaster, hackers wouldn’t be able to hack your other online accounts since the password would only work on the Ticketmaster website. You can create unique passwords using a password manager like Bitwarden.
Email Aliases
- Protection: Using a unique email alias for Ticketmaster would have isolated the compromised email address from your primary account.
- Benefit: Even if hackers obtained the alias, they wouldn’t have access to your main email, reducing the risk of further identity theft or account takeovers. You’d also be able to change your Ticketmaster email address to a new alias email address.
A service like SimpleLogin creates email aliases and redirects emails very reliably. This service is also incorporated into ProtonMail.
Phone Number Aliases
- Protection: A virtual phone number used specifically for Ticketmaster would have kept your real phone number private.
- Benefit: Hackers wouldn’t have access to your primary phone number, limiting their ability to use it for identity verification or SIM-swapping attacks.
A service like Hushed provides an alias phone number.
Virtual Credit Cards
- Protection: Using a unique virtual credit card for Ticketmaster transactions would have limited the exposure of your main credit card details.
- Benefit: Even if partial credit card information was leaked, it would be for a virtual card that could be easily canceled without affecting your primary card.
A service like Privacy.Com provides virtual credit cards. Similar services are IronVest (formerly Blur) and MySudo.
