User count on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, and others is growing at a constant pace. With more than 4.89 billion active users sharing their personal information, using it to grow their business or for personal use, it has become a lucrative target for hackers. This is the foremost reason that leads to substantial growth in evolving cyber threats.
It has become imperative to take measures to make social media a safe place and prevent it from unauthorized access and identity thefts. Let’s analyze and find answers to the question of ‘how does digital access impact cybersecurity’ and common ways to prevent it from happening.
More users means a fertile ground for hackers to operate
The use of social media platforms has increased at a rapid speed and videos have taken to a new level. Whether you are using it for business, marketing, or branding, the purpose of using it is many. As these platforms scale up with information and personal data, the exploitation and vulnerability increase. Hackers find it to be the perfect place to break into. Awareness is the key to preventing your account from getting hacked or information from being leaked.
The first line of defense is provided by cybersecurity tools. Using tools that are one step ahead of the hackers while making their use easy for everyone, whether a business or an individual is important. With its powerful software for everyone, moonlock.com is the name that most people turn to safeguard their devices. Apple iPhone, Mac, and many other devices are protected with the best cybersecurity tools the brand offers. This keeps your data including photos, videos, contacts, and every other information as secure as you can think of. In addition to knowing about pretexting cyber security and what pharming cyber attack techniques are, a good tool is a must-have.
Growing numbers of cyberbullying cases
With a lot of data getting stored on digital platforms from all age groups, especially kids and teens, cyberbullying cases are on the rise. Cases in this regard include:
- Harassing others
- Defamatory information
- Personal or individual attacks
- Spreading false information
- Social exclusion
Cyberbullying, in any form, has a wide impact on teens who are more addicted to it. It leads to mental health issues like depression, isolation, and anxiety and even leads them to cause self-harm. To maintain social media safety, it is important to educate and raise awareness of cyberbullying among teens.
Ransomware attacks
There are so many ways that cybercriminals use to target social media accounts. Impersonating someone else by creating fake accounts, using vulnerabilities in third-party apps, exploiting with Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS), etc. These attacks cost small businesses more than ever on Instagram.
The data states that more than 72 percent of small businesses are hit by ransomware attacks. These growing threats make it clear how digital access impacts cybersecurity and negatively impacts businesses to a great extent. Keeping updated with new technology in cyber security is important for businesses to meet these evolving challenges.
Account takeover by stealing credentials
Account takeover is one of the biggest frauds. With open digital access, social media and cyber security combined have become a major issue. The cybercriminals are always on the hunt for vulnerable accounts. Stolen credentials of a user’s online account can be misused for the following purposes:
- Conduct monetary transactions or transfer funds
- Access sensitive data to the user with techniques like digital arrest
- Use loyalty points
- Send requests to your contacts asking for money
The use of stolen accounts is not limited to these purposes. The impact of it goes far beyond. For optimum social media security, use MFA, keep the browser updated, and regularly change passwords.
Phishing scams and social engineering
This happens when scammers find an entry to your bank accounts or spread misleading information to trap you for some fraudulent reason. This type of attack includes malicious links that are infected with viruses. In this scam, the exploiters use tricks by sharing deceptive messages, leaking out private messages, or making you click on malware-loaded links.
Hackers create an emergency-like situation so that the user doesn’t get time to check the link before clicking on it or understand the overall situation they land into. To prevent it, always re-check the link and ensure that it is safe and secured. Whenever something feels off, double-check it and be fully convinced before taking action.
DDoS attacks
This type of cyberattack is done to interrupt the performance of a target account by sending a huge amount of traffic from a suspicious or infected IP address. Traffic coming from multiple systems makes it difficult to track and causes a lot of havoc. It badly affects the reputation of the target owner of the account, causes financial losses, and creates disturbance. You should be alert about the source of traffic if it is coming in suspicious amounts from a single IP address.
Data breaches
Hackers target accounts that are the most visible and highly engaged brand accounts. To cause a social media data breach, the exploiters create a replica of it and steal data and other private information of the users or simply break into accounts with different techniques. In today’s times, information is money.
Hackers know that a company’s reputation is at stake for different reasons. Consumer data is a sensitive topic these days so hackers do not leave any chance to break into accounts and steal customer data. To prevent this, the brands should give top priority to investing in cybersecurity infrastructure and train their teams regularly on emerging threats.
Lack of robust regulations on social media
The internet-specific laws and privacy policies on social media are regularly enforced but it takes time to properly implement them. This means cybercriminals are way ahead of the law-enforcing agencies.
Due to the lack of accountability on social media accounts and oversharing of information, it is difficult to spot potential security gaps. Hackers understand these vulnerabilities well and keep themselves updated on the loopholes that they smartly exploit.
Fraud botnet activity on social media accounts
Fraud botnet activities are on the rise and they can cause a lot of damage to the users. As the use of these botnets is set to increase because of evolving tech like AI, social media platforms are gearing up to boost their security measures.
Modern bots are powerful enough to increase fake engagement on posts or bring unwanted clicks to ruin your marketing campaigns or put your account at total risk. These botnets can lead to flooding of trending hashtags that are embedded with malicious content. These bots are an ongoing issue and stricter regulations are being put in place by social media brands to control them.
As social media has the ability to transform the way the digital world operates, its power is immeasurable. While it drives innovation and brings the world on a single platform, you must have a strong eye on cyber threats too. Be aware of the growing cases of data breaches, impersonation scams, and social engineering attacks, and learn to control the exposure to activities that lead to vulnerabilities.