Most of us, from time to time, are guilty of oversharing things on social media. From personal details to work rants and live location, it seems like we sometimes lack a filter of what and what not to share. And while we may indeed delete the posts and photos we regret posting, not everything can be reversed.
In fact, sharing too many private details about your life can be really dangerous and we reached out to Daniel Markuson, the cybersecurity expert at NordVPN, who shared some very useful insight about it.
“From your social media accounts, especially Facebook, hackers can gain information about you and use social engineering attacks such as phishing, whaling, baiting, or pretexting to hack you,” Daniel told us.
Moreover, he said that they can use your information to impersonate you or even steal your identity. “Oversharing on social media makes the process of gathering information about the targeted person easier. And by sharing information about their family, users also put their loved ones in danger,” he explained.
“Although it’s fun to post vacation photos and let everyone know you’re having a cocktail on a sunny beach or skiing on a high mountain,” Daniel said, “it sends a clear signal to burglars that your home is empty.” The cybersecurity expert argues that those who really need to share their photos should at least wait till they are back home, and their home is not empty anymore.
We also wondered if we can actually post photos of friends without asking them. Daniel said that posting a photo of another person without their permission is a no go because “it breaches their right to privacy.” “Some people like to keep their life away from the internet and they should be allowed to do so,” he said.
Most people nowadays have a very active social media presence. But not many of us consider what kind of information about ourselves we give out to social media platforms and what they do with it.
“Data like your email address, name, day of birth, likes, or even the place you live is valuable for social media platforms. Once you willingly give away data by agreeing to a platform’s terms and conditions, it belongs to them,” Daniel said.
Moreover, “social media platforms can share this data with their partners, sell this data to third parties, or even transfer your data to countries with less user-friendly privacy laws.” Which, of course, is the last thing you want them to do.
The good news is that there are a couple of things people can do to be more private on social media. First tip from Daniel is to not overshare and only provide the necessary information. “You don’t always need to provide your address or date of birth to create accounts.”
The second tip is to “use strong passwords, don’t reuse them, and keep them safe in a password manager, like NordPass.”
Daniel’s advice is to make sure you don’t use social media on public devices. “But if you do, always remember to log out when you’re done.”
Another useful and simple trick is to disable geolocation data on your apps. Moreover, make sure you never trust suspicious links, even if you get them from your friends. And last but not least is to set up 2-factor authorization where possible.
