The computer’s development has produced many valuable techniques to build massive databases. Web scraping is one of the methods used by data scientists, data analysts, and many other users. These web scrapers have some specific business goals to achieve by extracting specific data. Some web scrapers aim to steal personal data from different devices, which can be later used against the user’s device for financial gain or sold to marketing companies. If you’re concerned about web scrapers, you can use a proxy to maintain your anonymity over the internet. Proxy is a mediator server between the user and the target site. The proxy server has a pool of IP addresses that users can choose to prevent scraping. If a user selects a US proxy server, users can access any website through that proxy server. These are the residential proxies that hide your data and present you as a real area user from a specific location, in this case, the US.
Many companies are offering different proxy servers to protect user data from scrapers. However, Smartproxy offers US proxies servers that allow users to hide their personal information in a highly secure manner.
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Data exfiltration is sometimes referred to as data extortion or data theft. It is an unauthorized transfer of data from a device or a computer. It can be performed manually or automatically through an application. Moreover, it is a form of a security breach that occurs when the individuals or company’s data is retrieved, transferred, or copied from their device without authorization.
Cybercriminals most commonly perform data exfiltration over a network or the internet without authorization. These are usually targeted attacks to gain access to a network or machine to identify and extract personal data.
Hackers can frequently exfiltrate data when users rely on different software, extensions, or when they set easy-to-crack passwords. In some cases where hackers have physical access to the target device, they acquire access through remote apps or by installing a removable media device. However, some common cybercriminals use different techniques to extract user data from their devices, and these are:
- Phishing Attacks: It includes users who can download the malware and give their credentials.
- Outbound Emails: The user receives an email with attached malware; once the user opens the email, the attacker gains user device credentials.
- Downloads to Insecure Devices: Users usually download any malicious software or application from a third-party website.
Some users’ devices can silently exfiltrate the data while working normally, such as when using the Wacom digital drawing tablet. Moreover, some sites or applications have malware that users get exposed to when they visit these websites or download the application. It can extract the users’ credentials, photos, contact, even personal bank account credentials allowing the attacker to achieve their desired financial gain. All these things are possible when a user directly accesses the malicious site or application. So, using a US proxy will decrease the chances of data exfiltration and maintain your anonymity over the internet.
Artificial intelligence is a vital tool for analysis, data capture, and collecting information. So, many businesses use it for various reasons, including a better understanding of their day-to-day operations, making accurate business decisions, knowing more about their customers, and selling data to different companies.
Some companies have built their whole business model around consumer data. This massive data is important as these companies either sell personal information to other marketing firms or create targeted ads for themselves.
There are some types of data that businesses collect from their user, and then they can use these data for different purposes.
- Personal data: Include Social Security Numbers, gender, as well as non personally identifiable data such as your web browser cookies, IP address, and device ID.
- Engagement data: Include how users interact with a business site such as mobile application, social media, messages, or any other medium.
- Behavioral data: Include transactional information such as buying histories, product use, and qualitative data (e.g., mouse movement information).
The most sensitive online information includes health records, banking, and social security numbers. Social network posts, location data, and search engine questions are potentially private, but they’re usually monetized.
In some cases, the companies will allow you to use their application without any fee, but you will exchange your information; allowing them to access your data. It is the same type of deal offered by Facebook and Google. Instagram, Messenger, Gmail, and Google Maps are also examples of these kinds of free services. You pay with your personal information, which is then used to target advertisements to you.
Sometimes hackers will scrape all your data from online sites that collect your information. Then, they will use the database for their own financial gains. However, you can prevent these hackers from getting hold of your data by staying anonymous on the internet with the help of US proxies.
Artificial intelligence researchers also use personal data to train their automated programs. Users upload videos, text, photographs, and audio recordings every day. All of these are uploaded to sites like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and many other small community websites. If you are concerned about your data and don’t want to endanger your privacy, use proxy servers to hide your information or don’t use these websites.