Social media is a significant part of daily life for people across the globe. According to the 2018 Global Digital suite of reports from We Are Social and Hootsuite, more than three billion people now use social media more than once per month.
Social media is now such a routine part of life that it can be easy to overlook security when using it. But taking security for granted when using social media can make people vulnerable to criminals, who can use social media to access a wealth of personal information about their victims. That can not only make people vulnerable to crimes such as identity theft, but it also can make them more likely to be victims of violent crimes. For example, according to GuardChild, a group founded by parents with a goal of protecting children in the digital age, 33 percent of all internet-initiated sex crimes involve social networking sites.
Thankfully, prioritizing security in regard to social media is easy and won’t take the enjoyment out of engaging with others on platforms like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. The following are some security measures social media users can take to protect themselves.
• Avoid being overly personal. Always think before sharing personal information via social media. Even sharing something as innocuous as the name of the street where you grew up can provide an avenue for cyber criminals to access your personal information. Many people use information like their childhood address or pets’ names when creating passwords for bank accounts or other password-protected sites. Sharing such insider information on social media gives criminals a backdoor through which they might be able to access your sensitive information.
• Lock your devices. The 2018 Global Digital suite of reports indicated that 90 percent of the three billion global social media users access platforms via mobile devices. If your devices, including smartphones and tablets, aren’t locked, criminals can access them via Wi-Fi wherever you go. Always lock your devices, and make sure sensitive information is encrypted if it’s being stored on your mobile devices.
• Be on the lookout for the obvious. Email-based scams are still widely in use, even though many users may think that such scams are a thing of the past. The digital security experts at Norton note that email phishing scams are still used because they still work, having recently been used to hack into private businesses and even government organizations. These scams, when effective, can be used to provide criminals with access to email and social media accounts. It’s important that social media users stay alert to all potential security threats, even those they might think are too simple to work.
May 28, 2019
