Raise your hand if you have become infatuated by the various social media giants like Facebook,Twitter, Google+ ?
I know we all have been bitten by the social site bug over the past few years with the ease and access it has offered us to stay connected. However, there is a darkside to Social Media sites that lurks in the background for organized crime and internet criminals.
Social Media popularity has exploded in recent years with ALL ages and demographics. With that amount of activity comes the chance of internet crimes. We ought to know we deal with this stuff on a daily basis, the reason these social media sites are targeted by cyber criminals are:
a. Millions of Potential Targets
b. Easy to Social Engineer people into clicking links
c. Works well with Spear Phishing attacks
d. Produces Millions of Dollars
Social Media is here to stay, so, if you are going to partake in any of these sites we recommend you:
1. Only invite friends that you know.
2. Be very careful on ANYTHING that you click on, open up or read…Even from friends because this is how cyber attackers get you.
3. Keep your Anti-Virus Up to Date.
4. Use sites like VirusTotal to scan links.
5. Pay close attention to what URLs are showing up in your browser. Phishing sites redirect you to pages
that may look like Facebook, but are not really Facebook URL’s.
If you do use the internet for much of your personal or professional business, make sure you isolate and even encrypt your important data such as Social Security Numbers and Credit Card Numbers. The article displays a very small window of the real world- there’s a multitude of unscrupulous entities out there that would LOVE to cash in on your valuable information.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46802292/ns/technology_and_science-security/#.T2siDY4zzx5
