Cybersecurity: The risks of oversharing on Social Media
Join us at the third SingularityU Germany Summit conference in June 2018 and learn more about Cybersecurity.
In 1983 the german government wanted to conduct a population census to find out how many people live in Germany and what they do.
Hard to imagine from today’s perspective but the German people were boycotting the population census, there were protests and an outcry of people against the state interfering in their privacy. Just two weeks later an historic judgement by the Federal Constitutional Court was announced. The judgment stipulates the right to informational self-determination. It included that every human being has the right to decide themselves which data a third party requests of them, saves, and uses.
Today we live in completely different times. People share almost everything online, especially over Social Media and don’t really mind that the most successful companies in the world such as Google, Amazon, Apple and Facebook are earning money by collecting and selling data about them. But also outside their private life most of the people use digital tools to go about their daily lives, and so do companies.
Social Media — the perfect hunting ground for cybercriminals
Even more important becomes the question how individuals and companies can protect themselves from cyber attacks. Especially Social media is one of the platforms that becomes a great hunting ground for cybercriminals.
Social media has also turned into a tool that cybercriminals use to get to their victims. When someone posts personal photos and notes or simply when someone neglects their privacy settings, they help cybercriminals to use their information to launch targeted phishing emails containing malware links.
No surprise to learn that one in eight companies suffers from security breaches related to a social media cyber attack.
But how can individuals and companies protect themselves from cyber attacks?
Making big investments in tools or other countermeasures are often not very useful as the root of the problem lies in the false online behaviour of the individual.
Therefore it is crucial to create and foster a security-aware culture, one in which employees understand the potential risks involved using social media.
First of all it makes sense to be sensible about the information one shares with the world and be aware that the more information one shares about their daily lives the easier it becomes for criminals to send emails containing suspicious links. Secondly every employee should use different passwords for different accounts making it harder to be hacked. And lastly educating employees about the privacy and protection settings on social media is extremely important to avoid becoming an easy target to cyber attacks.
All of the above mentioned is no rocket science and as soon as companies understand that we live in a world where the oversharing of information is the new normal, they can get started on educating their employees to become aware of the risks and how to avoid them.
Curious to elaborate deeper on the topic of cybersecurity? Find us on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter for more daily insights!
Jaya Baloo is the CISO of KPN Telecom in the Netherlands and in 2017 was recognized as one of the top 100 CISO’s globally. She will be speaking about cybersecurity at the Summit on June 4 & 5 in Berlin!
