The risk of social media

Social media plays a big part in our daily lives, and we can’t deny that. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social networks come with major vulnerabilities, and many cyber threats stem from these platforms we willing give our information up to.

With social media platforms being full of so much personal information, it is a hacker’s candy store. Social media users are more vulnerable than you may think.

We are somewhat comfortable or accustom to putting a lot of information online. Hackers know this and know if they can gain access to your profile, they also gain access to your personal information. Clever spammers are even taking advantage of your Google Calendar feature, which essentially displays your life online, that automatically adds events to your calendar as soon as you’re invited. This means all a spammer needs to do is send his spam via Google Calendar’s ‘Add Guests’ feature.

Another commonly used scam is hacking into a victim’s social media account to obtain their contact list. Once a hacker is in, it is not uncommon for them to post from the victim’s ‘wall’ with a link that takes clickers to another page requesting for credentials. Sadly, people are trusting and will typically click the link and give up their information, such as username, email and password. The scammers can then sell these credentials to whomever they wish.

Cyber crime rates are evidently increasing as hacking becomes more advanced and users give up more and more information. It is important to never assume a hack won’t happen to you. Be prepared and proactive. Change your passwords frequently and never use the same one twice. Use a secure password generator. Check your social media accounts to determine which third-party apps have access. Most importantly, never click on a link that doesn’t look familiar to you.

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