cyber security

Social engineering has become one of the most harmful ways that attackers can gather information on their prospective targets. Human nature makes us all curious to click on this link or that link. This is the obvious case when we talk about social media too. It seems that everyone likes to tell their life story on social media these days. It is not very hard for an attacker to gain basic information about a person just from the information that the person themselves is putting on there. It is fairly easy to find out where a person works, who they are related to and what their activity patterns are (Jain, 2019). There are ways we can combat social engineering when we are on social media, however. One of the simplest ways to stop this is to not reveal a lot of information about yourself on these websites (Jain, 2019). This is the biggest way that you can protect yourself. Another way is to make sure that you verify any information about a person or company that approaches with any “deal” or incentive (Jain, 2019). This will protect yourself from clicking on any unwanted links or providing too much information to a suspicious person. Lastly, the use of complex passwords for your social networking websites is imperative (Jain, 2019). Users need to make sure that they are using good combinations of letters, number and symbols and, preferably, not reusing the same password that you’ve used for other websites or email (Jain, 2019).

Jain, A. (2019). Social Engineering: A Threat to Social Networking. Retrieved from https://thecybersecurityplace.com/social-engineering-a-threat-to-social-networking/