How to Prevent Personal Information Leaks and "Doxxing" Risks

This article provides practical guidance on preventing personal information leaks and dealing with “doxxing” risks, helping you raise cybersecurity awareness and protect your privacy.

Beware of Risks from Piecing Together Scattered Information

In the Internet age, personal information exists in fragmented form across various platforms and services. Many people believe that leaking small pieces of information is harmless. However, the online environment is not absolutely secure, and malicious actors can collect and combine these scattered bits to reconstruct a complete personal profile. Even a simple search engine can be used for data gathering.

Take a certain social platform as an example: while users share snippets of their lives, they may inadvertently expose personal details. Some users like to publicly discuss the meaning and usage scenarios of their passwords, which undoubtedly increases the risk of those passwords being cracked.

Social-engineering principles tell us that meaningful strings often appear repeatedly in multiple places. A unique username or an easy-to-remember password is likely reused across different platforms, making it a common vector for information leaks.

Reduce Account Linkage to Protect Your Identity

For ordinary netizens who have no need to build a personal brand, it is recommended to use randomly generated usernames and passwords to minimize the correlation between accounts on different platforms.

Note that merely using different credentials is not enough to eliminate account linkage. If identical or similar content is posted under accounts on different platforms, they can still be identified as belonging to the same person.

Common Types of Sensitive Information

Below are some common types of sensitive information that require extra care:

  • Passwords
  • Usernames
  • Avatars
  • Birthdays
  • Addresses
  • Phone numbers
  • Email addresses
  • QQ numbers
  • WeChat IDs
  • Personal websites
  • Geolocation data
  • Photos

Malicious actors often integrate leaked personal information from various sources using “social-engineering databases.” For instance, if two separate platform leaks contain the same phone number, it is highly probable that both records belong to the same individual.

Even if usernames and photo styles differ across platforms, they can still be linked via these databases to compile a comprehensive personal dossier.

This is not fear-mongering; it is a common application of social-engineering databases. The barrier to using such databases for information gathering and doxxing is low—even minors can master them easily.

Raise Cybersecurity Awareness to Safeguard Your Privacy

While the Internet brings people closer, it can also widen the gap between them. Social platforms provide spaces for communication, yet they can also make users feel more isolated.

In the online world, we long to express ourselves and find resonance, but we must also stay vigilant and protect our privacy.

There is no need to reveal every detail of your life to strangers online. Speak cautiously, act prudently, enjoy solitude, and improve yourself—only then can you navigate the digital realm with ease.

Recommendations:

  • Regularly review and update your passwords to ensure they are strong.
  • Avoid reusing the same username and password across different platforms.
  • Be careful when sharing photos or posts that contain personal information.
  • Use tools like NullPrivate to protect your DNS queries and prevent DNS leaks.
  • Stay informed about the latest cybersecurity trends to understand emerging threats and countermeasures.