Cybersecurity Expert Releases 17 Tips on How to Stay Safe on Social Media

As the global world becomes more interconnected with more people and businesses embracing digitization (active social media engagement) leading to an alarming increase in the number of reported cyber attacks, a cybersecurity consultant and trainer, Meena R has released tips for social media cyber safety.

According to the cybersecurity expert, these tips will help reduce cyberattacks and hacks while ensuring internet users are safe online.

It should be noted that a new report on Cybersecurity for SMEs by the EU Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) has disclosed that over a third of the 250 SMEs surveyed had experienced a cyber incident in the last five years and over half indicated that a serious incident could lead to business failure.

Social Media Safety Tips

•  Install good antivirus software on your laptop and phone.
• Turn off your location. Some sites even keep track of your activities in the offline world, but turning off location will at least do the least possible loss.
• Don’t forget to set up Security Answers.
• Never leave your account logged in. You are in a way inviting cybercriminals to hack your account or act as an impostor.
• Always Check and Analyze your post before posting. Just ask yourself “Does the world need to know this?” Try not to put too many revealing photos online. For example, I have once seen a person posting his daughter’s photo online where the school name was visible on the bus. I have also seen a picture of someone in a café, whose credit card was lying on the café-table and all numbers were visible after magnifying. Don’t share the Birthday celebrations photos of your kids too. Thus, giving personal and private information to everyone. Try to blur such minor but important details before posting a photo.
• Always try to create a strong password for a site and Keep those passwords in a good password manager. Try to change it at a regular interval of time. Never set the same passwords for multiple sites.

Click Here To Read: Mauritius, Ghana, Nigeria Rank Top 10 African Countries in Global Cybersecurity Index

• Take one more step immediately and set up Multi-Factor Authentication for all social media platforms you are on. MFA is the best approach wherever you can use it.
• Don’t use anyone else’s mobile, computer and laptop to access your social media accounts.
• Don’t use Free Wi-Fi to access social media.
• Use a VPN service always if you need to access the social media on a network that you don’t own or manage.
• Please stop clicking on posts like “Check your death day’, “Find which celebrity do you look like” and so on. Remember, these posts are click-baits and they want you to click on them. I am sure that you don’t care what that 80’s film star looks like now, or what unbelievable thing some person did to some other person. Not only this, even the posts which are reposted by your friends and other random posts can often be alluring when you are wasting time on Social Media, e.g., Facebook. Resist the urge!
• Please read the Terms and Conditions of major Social Media sites carefully. I know it is a bit difficult and time-consuming task and especially boring, but at least have a look over these once in a while. Even once a year will help you…
• Review privacy settings in your account frequently, as they are making changes all the time. Don’t rely on default settings. Switch off or disable settings that you don’t like there…You may need to limit your social media information. Facebook and Twitter, for example, allows you to control who sees what and to some extent what information they gather about you. If you don’t know yet, then know that recently Facebook introduced so big of changes in the privacy policy of WhatsApp that very serious concerns have been raised the world over. All because WhatsApp wanted to enforce the “Accept or Get Out’ approach to its users (2021).
• If you are comfortable, then you can go ahead and choose not to share your real ‘Date of Birth’. Your DoB is very valuable information. Similarly, you don’t tell a stranger in the street what is the name of your pet, or where you were born.
• You should also access your profile from an outside account or while logged out to see that –How much information about you is being shared or made available at different levels by them.
• Why not catch up with real friends the old-fashioned way, i.e., via phone calls, reunions, in-person visits, etc?
• To be safe online for financial transactions, you can set up a completely different bank account and only put money in when you want to make an online purchase. If you do that, then even if a breach happens on a Social Media platform, there is a built-in buffer between your main finances and the thieves.

Cybersecurity safety tips