Social Media Breaches Are Becoming More Prevalent
We’ve already been bombarded with so much news of data breaches that many of us have become numb to it. This numbness is often termed breach fatigue. But now isn’t the time to become complacent, as hackers start to target social media accounts, turning these platforms into a severe security risk for many businesses and individuals. But what is a social media breach, and how does it affect you?
In this article, we’ll explore social platform breaches, how they happen and why these accounts are being targeted. We’ll also take a look at how you can protect yourself by being mindful of what you share, checking privacy settings and using proxies like a Facebook proxy to protect your account further.
We’ll be covering the following topics related to social media breaches:
- What is a social media data breach?
- What are the dangers of these breaches?
- Why are social media accounts targeted?
- How to protect against social media data breaches
What Is A Social Media Data Breach?
A data breach occurs when an unauthorized person gains access to sensitive or confidential information without the necessary permissions. Social media data breaches target the social platforms of businesses and individuals and forcibly try to gain access to personal information.
These breaches have become so popular recently that they now account for 41% of breaches globally. Hackers use these breaches to gather personal data on the users and create detailed profiles on potential victims, which they can then use to launch various attacks.
There are a few types of cyber attacks frequently used to target social media accounts; these attacks are:
- DDoS Attacks
- Ransomware
- Malware
- Phishing
What Are The Dangers Of These Breaches?
Think about the information that you share on your social platforms. You add your name, email, physical address, gender, birthday, and many of your personal preferences. Hackers gather all of this information (and more) known as personally identifiable information (PII), and when they’ve collected enough, they can launch identity fraud and identity theft attacks. They can also use this information for targeted phishing attacks or use brute force to learn the passwords of accounts and the emails they are linked to.
A Few Recent Breaches And Their Effects
To put things into perspective, let’s take a look at some of the recent social media breaches and their effects.
A Facebook breach occurred in March 2021 after a vulnerability was exposed. In the breach, the user records of 533 million users were posted on a hacking forum.
LinkedIn also recently suffered from a major data breach. Around the same time as the above Facebook leak, user details of at least 500 million users were made for sale on a hacker forum. Hackers can view a selection of the details for only $2 in forum credits; however, access to the full 500 million records would come closer to four digits.
Twitter has also recently been a victim of a data breach. In January 2022, the accounts of at least 5.4 million users were leaked due to an unsolved vulnerability exploited by hackers. The vulnerability has since been addressed.
Why Are Social Media Accounts Targeted?
Social platforms are such a popular target at the moment because of the lax privacy policies and lack of knowledge from users regarding their privacy. The increase in breaches can be attributed to the fact that many users are unaware of the risks to their data on these platforms. Many believe that because your account is protected by a sign-in, it’s completely safe to use. This lack of additional protection measures has made these platforms an attractive target for many hackers. Why struggle with all the cybersecurity of a big business when you can target the CEO’s social media platforms?
How To Protect Against Social Media Data Breaches
There are a few ways to protect against social media breaches. Some of them include:
- Proxies – using social media proxies, like a Facebook proxy, can encrypt and hide your information from trackers. A Facebook proxy can add a layer of security to your connection.
- Passwords – Always use strong, random passwords consisting of at least three phrases, numbers and symbols.
- Two-factor authentication – Enable two-factor authentication whenever it’s an option.
- Reviewing privacy settings – Review your privacy settings on social media platforms and ensure they’re all set to private.
Final Thoughts
Data breaches are happening everywhere we turn, and it seems that no platform is truly safe. As such, we need to take better care of our information and be careful of what we share online. We need to remember that just because a platform seems secure, there may be vulnerabilities we’re unaware of that make us prime targets. Using strong passwords, two-factor authentication, and proxies are a few ways to protect ourselves.
