5 Important Security Concerns While Browsing Social Media from the Web

In today’s world, social networks with millions of users have become essential for both personal and professional reasons.

And most social gatherings and activities, like networking, meet ups, conference calls, texting, playing video games with each other – the list goes on – have begun to take place on these social networking sites.

With all this activity on social media, unfortunately there are negative impacts that come along for the ride. One of the biggest concerns is security.

Users compromise themselves by sharing their personal information, and often that information is open to hackers, bots and other nefarious types that are looking to gain from stealing your info or impersonating your account.

Identity fraud is where unauthorized persons enter information for their sinister intentions and use it for personal gain.

Identity theft is not a new concept, but the advent of social media growth has opened up new doors for cyber criminals.

Thieves, through the years, have searched for opportunities to gain personal information from individuals, such as taking mail from mailboxes or looking through victims’ garbage. Now, social media networks make it easier for cyber thieves to access this info without having to leave the comfort of your computer desk.

Attackers often target applications that require permission from the user. The intruder may access and manipulate the user’s information when the user permits access to his or her information unwittingly. Identity fraud is commonly targeted at stealing user passwords and individuals’ bank account records, social security numbers and other important info. The tools actively used in identity fraud are phishing and malware.

So, what can you do for ensuring security when using social media platforms?

Fortunately, there are multiple things you can put in place to add a level of security and help you avoid falling victim to fraud. Let’s take a look at a few easy-to-implement actions you can take to ensure your social media safety.

Make sure to use a VPN

After WhatsApp’s Personal Data Processing crisis that recently gave rise to concerns among users, Facebook, as the giant of social media platforms and owner of Whatsapp, attracted a huge response from all over the world.

While people try to protect their data, they are searching for alternative apps because they no longer trust Facebook in general (look back to the Cambridge Analytica scandal as well) and also apply different methods for Internet security. The safest one of these is using a VPN for hiding user information, IP address, and personal data.

VPNs are designed for complete anonymity, and what companies such as Facebook look for is to retrieve as much of your personal data as possible for advertising purposes and so on.

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