What is a Cyber Background Check?

Our increasingly digital world has ensured that organizations care about your online presence just like your offline one. As a result, they are now turning to cyber background checks to assess potential cyber risks and evaluate the digital behavior of individuals before employment. 

But what exactly is a cyber background check? This article explores what a cyber background check is, the information it offers, and the common sectors that request it. 

What You Should Know About a Cyber Background Check

A cyber background check examines a person's online presence and digital activity. It involves searching the internet, social media, and other online platforms for information about the person. Organizations use it to evaluate a person's online behavior, potential cyber risks, and reputation.

Employers, law enforcement agencies, and other organizations may conduct a cyber background check to assess your digital footprint before hiring, partnering, or doing business with you. It discloses information about your social media profiles, online postings, online communications, and other digital activities that could describe the kind of person you are.

In today's digital age, a cyber background check is also vital for identifying potential cyber threats such as hacking, phishing, identity theft, and other types of cybercrime.

Find Out What a Cyber Background Check Entails Here!

A cyber background check uncovers a wide range of information about a person's online activity and digital footprint. Here is the information to expect in a cyber background check report:

● Social media profiles: It reveals all available information about the person's social media accounts, such as their usernames, friend lists, comments, likes, posts, interests, and the kinds of people they follow.

● Online communication: It reveals a person's online communication details. It uncovers who they constantly communicate with via emails, text messages, or instant messages. 

● Online reputation: It evaluates a person's online reputation, highlighting all negative reviews and comments they may have sent or received. It also notes the type of media they share online.

● Criminal history: It uncovers everything about a person's online criminal history, more specifically, any that has to do with cyber crimes, fraud convictions, sex offender registries, and terrorist watch lists.

● Digital footprint: It provides an overall picture of your digital presence across popular and less common social media platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitch, TikTok, and Twitter.

Cyber background checks also reveal basic information in a traditional background check. These include:

● Educational history: This includes your degrees, certifications, and academic achievements. Professional background checks highlight the schools you attended and the year you obtained the certifications.

● Employment history: It highlights all information about your workplace, job titles, and professional certifications. 

● Financial account: cyber background checks detail a person's credit history, bankruptcy, and liens issues.

● Property ownership: This includes the person's properties, the legal description of the property, and the estimated value.

Sectors That Seek Cyber Background Checks and Why They Do

Major companies in the United States use cyber background checks to screen employees for positions requiring sensitive information access. Companies in these sectors often conduct a cyber background check:

Finance sector

Financial institutions screen employees for positions requiring sensitive data access, such as customer account information. Cybercriminals are increasingly targeting several financial institutions, and these firms must take precautions to protect their customers' data. 

Cyber background checks can assist in identifying potential employees who may pose a risk and should not have access to sensitive information. 

Background check reports from finance firms include the person's credit card numbers, social security numbers, bank account numbers, passport numbers, tax identification numbers, addresses, phone numbers, and other sensitive information.

Retail sector

Retail firms use cyber background checks to ensure that their employees are reliable and have no criminal history. This is significant because retail establishments are a common target for cyber attacks. Examples include customer names, addresses, purchase histories, employee names, and other sensitive retail store data. 

Healthcare sector

The healthcare industry increasingly relies on cyber background checks to ensure patient safety and data privacy. Because hospitals and health insurance providers are frequent targets of cyber attacks, they are among the most diligent users of cyber background checks. 

In addition to screening potential employees, cyber check screen people for cybercrime risks. A hospital, for example, may conduct a cyber background check on a patient before admitting them to determine if they have a history of cybercrime. Professional background check reports assist the hospital in protecting its patients' privacy and ensuring they are not vulnerable to cyber-attacks.

Typical Job Roles That Require Cyber Background Checks

Here are distinct job roles whose applicants a cyber background check screens:

1. Cybersecurity Analyst: These professionals are responsible for ensuring the security of an organization's systems and networks. They need a clean background to access sensitive data and prevent data breaches.

2. Information Security Officer: Information security officers are responsible for ensuring the security of an organization's information assets. They need to have a clean background to access sensitive data and prevent data breaches.

3. Cryptographer: Cryptographers are responsible for developing and implementing secure encryption algorithms. They need to have a clean background to ensure they do not pose a security risk to the organizations they work for.

4. Cybersecurity Consultant: Cybersecurity consultants provide advice and guidance to organizations on how to improve their security systems. They need a clean background to ensure they do not pose a security risk to their consulting organizations.

Limitations of Cyber Background Checks and How They Resolved

The following are limitations of cyber background checks that may arise during the check process:

Incomplete and outdated information: Some data sources are incomplete or outdated, so professional background check companies combine information from various sources online to ensure they obtain all the right and current information. 
 

False or misleading information: professional background check services use the best ai tools to verify data to ensure reports contain no false or misleading information. 

Technical limitations: professional background checks have experts who can scale through technical factors like encryptions and firewalls to gain access to specific information about a person.

Privacy concerns: professional background checks fully abide by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) while collecting and using people's information found on online sources.

Concluding Thoughts

A cyber background check is important to employers, organizations, and even individuals looking to assess a person or business associate's online activities and digital footprint. If you want to get a sense of what information about you is available, you can use truepeoplesearch.io to perform a self-background check; the website will help you obtain relevant data through social media profiles, online communications, and criminal history to give you data about what others can see.