Trust No One

We are told as children not to speak to strangers and to only trust those we know. Why as adults have we forgot this and seem to engage and share personal details online to those we don’t know?

The online world does a very good job at making you think that your information is safe when shared and encourages you to share as much as possible, yet often the sites/apps have very little security measures in place to protect all your information.

This is why you need to be cyber smart and not only rely on a third party to have all their cyber security ducks in a row.

You need to heed that childhood advice and start to be more careful with what you share and with whom you share it.

With online threats at an all time high and with your personal sharing at an all time high, it is a recipe for disaster if you don’t follow your best practices.

Hackers are lurking all over the internet and if you don’t have your accounts on private, they could use information they gain from your profiles for social engineering attacks and when successful, gain access to your accounts and cause long lasting damage for you and those around you.

An example of a social engineering attack that would be successful through purely looking at one of your accounts is hacking your password.

How would that happen? If they only look at your pictures on Instagram or posts on Facebook?

Well, even though there is an abundance of knowledge available regarding strong password management, many still have those easy to hack go to’s.

If your password is something like your dog’s name, your birthday or your hometown’s name your account will been compromised, if it hasn’t already been.

I’m sure you can imagine how a hacker can crack it: You post a picture with the caption that reads “Ahh look how cute Fluffy is this morning” or “I had the best birthday yesterday and it was made even more special being back home in East London”

Compromised.

What is more worrying is that even if you have your accounts on private and you only share to those you know, one of them could become compromised and if you have shared personal information, you are vulnerable.

Limit what you share and make sure that very personal information is left in the real world and out of the public cyberworld.

Cybercrime waits for no one, protect yourself and stay secure.

Let’s get real.

Olivia-Hannah Coetzee