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Santa Rosa, RS 11/8/2020 – Cookies can track the information you are accessing, your browsing preferences and which areas of the website you have focused on
How cookies work and their relationship with the importance of Cybersecurity today
Nowadays, everything can be done online. Paying a bill, scheduling an usa email list appointment, doing extensive research, and learning about a new subject. Most routine tasks can be done completely remotely.
The Digital 2019 report , produced by Hootsuite in partnership with We Are Social , showed that Brazil is the second country in the world where the population spends the most time connected to the internet. Here a question arises: how many websites does a user access per day? It is easy to conclude that there are many.
On every website they visit for the first time, it is common for most users to accept cookie policies in a completely intuitive way and, often, without even knowing what this might involve. What people are actually accepting when they agree to cookies can vary greatly depending on each website's policy. However, what is certain is that they are authorizing the website to monitor and capture their information and even share it with partners.
Types of Cookies
Marlos Chida, from Qriar Tecnologia , is the ideal person to talk about this subject. In addition to being a Security Consultant, he works throughout the life cycle of Qriar products and works on implementing new solutions and providing customer support. Marlos explained in detail how cookies can improve the user experience within a website.
“Cookies can track the information you are accessing, your browsing preferences and which areas of the website you have previously visited, allowing for the characterization of interests and personalization of browsing and user experience,” said the Security Consultant at Qriar Tecnologia.
The first cookie monitoring was created for a positive purpose: to link the user to their access. Therefore, before cookies, websites identified all visits as being made by different users, which is not necessarily true. After creating this monitoring, platforms can identify whether the user accessing the pages is doing so for the first time, or if they have accessed them previously. In addition, cookies allow the website to track everything the user is accessing, for example, what their preferences are, which pages they have viewed, and even store all of this on their computer.
However, it is important to take into account that there are different types of cookies, with different depths , and each of them has a different purpose and level of persistence. The three best-known types are as follows:
Session: do not collect personal information and are automatically deleted when the user closes the browser.
Persistent: Stored on the computer until they expire or are deleted, but do not take up significant space. They are used to collect user identification information.
Malicious: These can store and track absolutely all of a user’s online activity. These are cookies that can collect data and sell it to other companies for advertising purposes, as you can see below.
Cookies in behavioral advertising
Cookies are directly related to advertising. When people are impacted by advertisements for products that fit their interests, cookies have most likely been part of the performance of this advertisement.
Cookies are used in advertising to allow the internet user to be impacted by what, at one time or another, they would search for in search engines. Marlos Chida summarized this process very objectively.
“The use of cookies was yet another practical means found by advertising to achieve its goals. A much simpler option to be adopted in favor of a single task, which is to facilitate the user experience”, said Chida.
Despite the many positive ways in which cookies act, it is very important to emphasize that, in most cases, cookies act in a very malicious way and, therefore, it is worth paying attention and protecting yourself. Important points are suggested below.
Regulation of the use of cookies
Choosing not to accept cookies from websites does not guarantee the security of your information. The same goes for deleting cookies from your computer. “If the user does not accept cookies, there are other ways to monitor data,” said the Qriar consultant.
Monitoring personal information was one of the arguments used to create the General Data Protection Law, also known as LGPD. This law was created to regulate the way companies collect data in a digital environment. After all, before the creation of LGPD, data was being collected and used without the user's consent.
In this scenario, all companies that collect customer information must comply with the new Law, which offers severe penalties for those who do not comply with it. Among the new requirements is the fact that users now need to know exactly for what purpose their personal data will be used.
Digital security in today's times
The information presented in this text leads us to think about the importance of Cybersecurity given the number of cookies found on the internet every day. Taking action to protect personal or business information is essential in the technological era, especially in times of working from home. After all, everyone is vulnerable to cyberattacks and investing in Cybersecurity is the same as investing in protection.
Data from Fortinet Threat Intelligence indicates that Brazil suffered more than 1.6 billion cyberattack attempts in the first quarter of 2020 alone. This is exactly why Qriar Tecnologia focuses on the development, integration, implementation, and customization of Cybersecurity solutions. In addition, the company is prepared to assist companies that have not yet adapted to the new General Data Protection Law.
