Social Media Safety
The Internet has brought the world to our fingertips with real-time information and vast amounts of knowledge that we can instantly access with the click of a button. It has also connected us to millions of people in the form of social media. In its intended use, social media is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, however, some people have harmful intentions. Here are a few tips to keeping you and your family safe while using social media.
Check privacy settings
Check your social media privacy settings to limit what you are posting to the public. Your social media pages are a cyber criminal’s playground. They will study your public facing social media profiles to gather information about you such as your birthdate, address, workplace, where you bank, and other personally identifiable information. Try to limit the amount of information you are sharing publicly, like where you work or people you are related to.
Avoid fun surveys
Harmless posts, such as surveys, contain a lot of personal information. Many of these are designed to trick you into leaking answers to critical account security questions.
Protect your location data
Don’t allow social media apps to update where you are located. Criminals can use this information to either follow you or know when you are out of town. Don’t announce upcoming trips on your social media accounts and wait to post the pictures when you are back home. Also, turn off location data for your camera. Pictures you share can contain meta data that includes coordinates of where pictures were taken.
Unfriend hacked accounts
If a friend’s account becomes compromised, it’s best to unfriend them until you know they have gained back control of the account. If you have another way of contacting that friend, let them know that their account may have been compromised. Hacked accounts allow criminals to see posts that you made that are limited to friends only. We tend to share a bit more with our friends and this is exactly what criminals are counting on.
Be wary of strange links
Criminals will rely on our natural curiosity to catch us with our guard down. If you get a personal message or see a post on a trusted social media account that seems out of the ordinary, don’t click on it. Many of these messages will look something like “I can’t believe he just died!” or “Do you know this person?”
Check login activity
Many social media apps allow you to view your login activity. This lets you see when and where your account was accessed. Check these periodically to make sure that only you are accessing your account. If you do not recognize one of the locations, immediately have the app log you out of everywhere and reset your password.
