Ignore or become paranoid?

I recently switched my AV software to Bitdefender having previously used Kaspersky then Avast. Righty or wrongly Which rated Bitdefender top. That is beside the point.
Amongst the various Bitdefender reports, all but one showed my security levels are high. The odd one out is the Digital Identity Protection score.

In a way it is not surprising as I have been using my email address for about 25 years, have produced web sites, logged on to innumerable web sites, bought many apps, etc., etc.
Easy way to improve this score is to dump my email address and start a new one. All sort of cons to that and no pros. Had I been able to check this years ago it would probably have been much the same.

My inclination is to ignore it. Tackling each one in turn to improve the score would be a bigger job than I fancy tackling.

Sigurd said:

My inclination is to ignore it.

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I've been using Bitdefender Internet Security (paid), since July 2013.
Nothing has gotten through yet.

I have the firewall set to "block all", and then gave only my browser(s) and svchost.exe ...access to the internet.

Occasionally, I'll allow other things when needed.
Things like Microsoft Store, or Media Creation Tool... etc.

And I've been using the same email since 2006.



BDIS has thirteen modules. I only use three of them... (RED boxes)

I would say be somewhere in between. Be informed. With a long lived and used email it's likely that it's been involved in many data breaches. My email, also having been in use for over 20 years has been in countless breaches which can increase your chances of getting spam and phishing attempts.

You can get an idea (not a full picture of breaches where your email is involved here Have I Been Pwned: Check if your email has been compromised in a data breach). This is run by a well known cybersecurity fellow named Troy Hunt.

I could go on and on about security so feel free to ask questions. A very short non-exhaustive list of things to do

• Use a password manager (different password per site)
• Use MFA where ever possible (or at least on anything that is communication, contains PII or has financial data or transactions)
• Use EPP (endpoint protection) software, preferably one that can evaluate and provide web protection
• Checkout Sublime security if you use a gmail account (they have a free tier for personal and provide spam/phishing protection) Sublime Security - Cloud email security that’s not a black box

If your email has been breeched and you have changed the password, then there is no need to worry (so long as the new password is no guessable.

A passphrase like bible7windmill7cantaloupe will never be cracked and is fairly easy to remember. Just pick three, unrelated words and put a symbol between them.

Ghot said:

I've been using Bitdefender Internet Security (paid), since July 2013.
Nothing has gotten through yet.

I have the firewall set to "block all", and then gave only my browser(s) and svchost.exe ...access to the internet.

Occasionally, I'll allow other things when needed.
Things like Microsoft Store, or Media Creation Tool... etc.

And I've been using the same email since 2006.



BDIS has thirteen modules. I only use three of them... (RED boxes)


View attachment 118941

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Id have to sit around the house wearing a tin foil hat to go to that level, Anti Virus/Windows protection free for over 7 years now, not a jot has gotten through my wall of nothing

Another way to tackle this is to use email aliases for new services / existing services that you can change the email. DuckDuckGo is free, and is integrated with Bitwarden's email alias generation feature.

With unique email alias for each service:

1. They can't use your email address to do credential stuffing / password spray / etc.
2. Can't use your email address to correlate your identities

I must say, though, I have only ever gotten 1-2 realistic looking phishing attempts on my main (exposed) email address for over 2 decades. My hidden (huge provider) address, not on HIBP, somehow gets more spams/phishing attempts.

I also do wish I could change my email addresses / usernames / display names for more services. Data breaches are horrifying nowadays, although the most damaging ones seem to be those you can't do much about (with aliases) anyway.

My inclination is to ignore it

Agree. Just insure your accts have 2FA and any other security measures appropriate.

It would be interesting to see how your score compares to other Bitdefender users. If they have a forum, may want to ask. With the numerous attacks on financial institutions and other organizations, maybe a common theme.