Social networking sites have revolutionized the way we interact with others, you don’t meet people anymore, nowadays you added them. The features of social media sites differ, but they all have one thing in common, they collect a ton of personal information. Information sharing is encouraged on social media to power the communications that these sites rely on. This is how they can show you matches, interests, and more importantly Ads, which is one of the main revenue sources of social media platforms. Essentially, your information is being sold to the highest Advertiser, in a bidding format, for the right to show you an Ad that you might find interesting.
When it comes to your personal information, you the consumer is solely responsible for making sure that you only share what you are comfortable with. This about this, when you meet someone in person, would you exercise a certain amount of caution? I believe you would, after all this person is a total stranger. Yet on social, you will add someone that you do not know, and they immediately can see pictures of where you live, your friends, places you hang out, where you go to school, etc.
The fact of the matter is that people do not exercise the same amount of caution because they either believe the internet offers them anonymity, or they believe that since they are not making physical contact, they are somehow safe. We often forget that whatever we share with our friends on social media is also possibly visible to our friend’s friends.
Social media are full of people with good intentions, looking to make new friendships. Unfortunately, they are also a playground for false advertisement, disinformation, and folks with malicious intent looking to gather information about potential targets. How do you think that phishing attacks are so successful? For a phishing attack to be successful, the attacker has to know enough about a victim to craft an email that is likely to elicit a response. How do they get the information? You gave it to them when you signed up for Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and started sharing your life with the world.
How can you protect yourself?
- Limit the amount of shared information that can be used to identify you or make you vulnerable. In the state of Florida for example, real estate purchases are public records. This means that if you are a homeowner you are listed there by first and last name, along with your address. Therefore, someone with your first and last name, google, and a little bit of perseverance can find exactly where you live. Sometimes they do not even have to, because people will go on FB and post about the vacation they are going to, including a little map route with the source and destination. This is great, no only are you telling the world where you live, but also that you will not be there for the next two weeks.
- Remember that the internet is public, once you share something there is no way to get it back. You can delete a post, but that does not guarantee that someone else has not already re-shared it or copied its content and posted it on another site, etc. Make sure that you are comfortable and aware of what you put out there.
- Be wary of strangers. The internet makes it easy for people to mask their true identity and motives, while also making it easy for victims to misinterpret intentions from strangers.
- Do not believe everything you read online, and stop re-sharing or re-posting without proper investigation of the content of what you are helping to spread. During this past election, I could not open Facebook without being bombarded with articles bad mouthing both candidates. Most of them were being shared and re-shared by people on my friend’s list. A ton of them was just clickbait, old news being re-branded and re-published, or just plain fake. If you value your friends’ opinion of you, and we often do, ask yourself this. What will they think of you when they open an article you re-posted and find out that the source is bogus.
- Use privacy settings, they are there for a reason. All social media platforms have privacy settings. Make sure that you review them and are comfortable with the configuration in place, keep in mind that many of the restrictions that are available on these settings might be turned OFF by default. Also, make sure that you check the social media site’s information-sharing policy, particularly how it will share your information and that of your friends.
- Beware of 3rd party apps, the next Cambridge Analytica is just around the corner. Data is the commodity of the 21st century, and whoever has it can leverage it to make reasonable predictions about products, behavior, affiliations, etc. This is why everywhere you go on the internet, you are entering information. 3rd party apps on social media might provide additional functionality, but also might be snooping into your data when they do not need to.
- Keep your browser up-to-date, many attacks are the result of clickbait on social media, exploiting vulnerabilities on older versions of your favorite browsers.
- Use antivirus software with up-to-date definitions. Countless times I have been called by friends whose computer is infected with spy, adware, or worse after the kids were clicking around on the internet or downloading games from social media sites, without antivirus. If something bad makes it to your computer through a clicked link or email attachment, AV can save the day.
AV recommendations:
Kids are especially at risk. If you are a parent, you must ensure that your child is having a safe and constantly monitored social media experience. I would think no social media experience would be even better, it is your choice.
Please enjoy social media responsibly and remember, technology is a tool, not a necessity.
J.
