It’s almost funny how carefree we are when it comes to our personal data on the internet. Let’s face it, Facebook knows more about us than we’re really comfortable with, but at this point, we kinda just accept it and hope it doesn’t come back to bite us in the ass. We’ve basically resigned ourselves into thinking that any attempt to maintain any sort of online privacy is futile.

This powerlessness towards digital privacy issues has a name, and it is called privacy fatigue, which often leads to oversharing on social networks and ignoring the inherent security risks.

Privacy fatigue is connected with living under constant strain, with a permanent feeling that third parties are taking advantage of your personal information, and all resistance being pointless. In fact, some people believe they don’t have enough power to stand against privacy violation. A third (32.3%) don’t know how they can fully protect their privacy online and one-in-ten (13%) have lost interest in how they can further improve their privacy.

In an era where nine out of ten (89.3%) people go online several times a day, the internet has become essential for modern living. This has created a tremendous challenge for users to keep all their personal details under control. According to a recent Kaspersky Lab survey, nearly one-in-five (17%) have seen private information about themselves or their family members that should not have been in the public domain. This rises to almost a quarter (22.3%) amongst people who have children under 18.

Such helplessness towards privacy issues has also affected people’s online behavior. A fifth (19%) do not make extra efforts – like regularly clearing browsing history or using special add-ons to block online tracking features – to secure their privacy while surfing the internet from their devices.

This longstanding apathy is the reason why you see so many fake accounts on social media where people impersonate your friends or even yourself. It is also the reason why more and more accounts are being hacked.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. In order to secure your digital privacy, Kaspersky Lab recommends some simple steps to follow:

• Start managing your digital footprint: keep a list of your accounts and regularly
  check if your data has become publicly accessible. Create a secondary e-mail
  too.
• Use special digital tools that allow surfing the internet safely, like Private
  Browsing or detecting any webcam or mic access by untrusted apps.
• Install reliable security solutions that include a set of utilities to minimize the risks
  of privacy violation such as Kaspersky Security Cloud, Kaspersky Secure
  Connection and Kaspersky Password Manager.

You can thank us later.