By Simon Parker at Minerva Security
As technology advances, social media has gained popularity over time. It has provided a platform where people can freely express their feelings and get to interact with others, not forgetting to make new friends each passing day.
It has made communication quite easy, and news spread so fast thanks to the social media sites. However, while everyone is so keen to meet new people, form relations to feeling a sense of belonging, there is little time to worry about their security.
Cybercrimes are continually increasing with internet adoption, and the more you let people in your life, the less safe you become. These people you interact with, “friends”, may have different motives as they send their requests to become your friends.
Cybercrimes With The Use Of Social Media
Identity Theft
This is the most common form of cybercrime. It occurs without you knowing, only to try and access your account and you find that you can’t get access to it. The next thing could be draining your bank accounts. With this in mind, you ought to be vigilant and use strong passwords to minimize the risk of identity theft occurring.
Leading Stalkers To You
In a bid to update your status, and post pictures on your page, people may connect the dots and get information that they ought not to and then find you. For stalkers, who in many cases are so keen to roughly examine what you post, may get hints of where you live or work, resulting in the tracking you down when you least expect it.
It is therefore advisable to reveal as little personal information as possible, and not to reveal the places where you stay to persons who you don’t even know.
Carelessness
Weekdays are usually the busiest days of the week. Everyone faces different challenges at their place of work, and at times, things don’t go as planned. In a bid to vent and express your frustrations, you may end up saying a lot that may not be necessary, more so where you are angered.
The information released may then be used later on against you, and it may cost you your job if you are not careful. This can be dealt with by minding what you say and post online. Moreover, firms may put in place control measurements on social media, to prevent the release of vital information to competitors.
Corporate spies
Everyone has a way through which they earn their income. Some people are quite talented in spying, and when they seek to be your friends, you may not know about their motives. With time, they may gain access to your confidential information, through hacking. More so, if you don’t have a strong password or don’t regularly change the password, making it vulnerable. With time you may be accused of espionage, whereas you even know not about it. So play safe.
Corruption of passwords
A lot of people may be at high risk of their passwords being corrupted. To the hacker, this is an easy way to maneuver, and they have a lot of loopholes they can utilize. One of the ways that you ease their work is through remembering the password, which makes it so easy for them to bypass.
With time, a lot of your personal information is at their disposal. They end up acquiring a lot of information about you even regarding other accounts and your financial information as well. Be safe and input strong passwords, and also regularly change the passwords. Using different passwords for different accounts also makes it hard for people to connect and make relations between the accounts. Hence you remain protected.
Links to malware
Many people tend to fall victim to this. Upon logging into their accounts, some enticing links may emerge that lead you to click on them. On clicking on other links, it may require you to sign up giving more personal information. Well, most are malicious and are only there to enable you to reveal more information about yourself, and it may not work so well on your part. Avoid falling into the trap and only follow links from trusted sources.
The trick of remaining safe while using social media is knowing how much to let people know about you. Using strong passwords, and changing them regularly. To survive in the internet open only trusted links to avoid malicious links.
About the Author
This article was written by Simon Parker at Minerva Security. Minerva is an integrated fire & security service provider with a clear vision to create smarter environments and to help its customers reduce their fire and security operating costs.
