Protect Yourself from "Doxing"
Doxing refers to gathering personal and sensitive information about an individual and releasing it publicly for malicious purposes, such as public humiliation, stalking, identity theft, targeting for harassment, or attempts to silence the individual. Doxing may be conducted by researching public databases, hacking, or through social engineering. The term "doxing" is derived from the phrase "dropping dox (documents)."
Doxing often involves hackers attempting to embarrass or shame individuals by publishing confidential information, images or videos obtained from their personal accounts. Initially, doxing was used by hackers to "out" the identities of fellow bad actors/hackers. However, more recently, it has been used to attack users with opposing viewpoints.
Santa Monica College has deployed numerous security measures to protect sensitive information about its students and employees. In the section below—Tips to avoid doxing—we encourage everyone to adopt similar safeguards in their own online activities.