Cybercriminals targeting social media: Facebook and Instagram are becoming phishers’ favorites

Social media phishing, primarily Facebook and Instagram, saw the highest quarter- over-quarter growth of any industry with a 74.7 percent increase, according to the Vade Secure Phishers’ Favorites report for Q1 2019. While Facebook has been in the top 10 since report’s inception, Instagram cracked the top 25 for the first time, taking the #24…

Social media-enabled cybercrime is generating $3.25 billion a year

Social media-enabled cybercrime is generating at least $3.25B in global revenue annually, according to an extensive six-month academic study undertaken by Dr. Mike McGuire, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Surrey. Key insights One in five organizations have been infected with malware distributed via social media Reports of cybercrime involving social media grew…

Zuckerberg Defends Facebook in New Data Breach Controversy

A British parliamentary committee investigating whether the social media behemoth was being used to manipulate the results of elections published 250 pages of internal Facebook documents earlier Wednesday. They show executives holding discussions about big companies such as Netflix being granted preferential access to user data even after Facebook had tightened its privacy rules in…

What Are the Seven Biggest Social Media Scams of 2018?

The massive rise in popularity of social platforms has led to a huge upswing in social media scams — putting a growing pool of users at risk. Facebook had 2.23 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2018, while photo-sharing site Instagram hit 1 billion monthly active users by June 2018, according…

Social media: The zero-trust game

Our value today is measured in numbers. Followers, connections, likes, tweets, and impressions now count toward not only the value of our opinions but also quantify our sphere of influence. These metrics, however, are easily manipulated to such an extent that even elections have allegedly been at the mercy of the social media numbers game….

PROTECTING YOUR PRIVACY – Part 2: How to Maximize Your Privacy on Social Media and in Your Browser

In the last post we highlighted the privacy risks associated with using popular social networking sites and browsers. You might not appreciate just how much of your personal data is being accessed by advertisers and other third parties via your social media accounts and internet browsing. Similarly, your privacy settings may have changed significantly since…

Should governments regulate social media data collection?

Venafi announced the results of a survey querying 512 security professionals attending RSA Conference 2018. The survey evaluated opinions on the intersection of cyber security, privacy threats and government regulation. According to the survey, 70 percent of respondents say governments should regulate the collection of personal data by social media companies to protect user privacy. However,…

We’re not going on a summer holiday

You know the saying: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Cybercriminals seem to have taken that truism to heart, because they continue to reuse the same old scams — and they never fail to find victims. Last summer, social media worldwide were flooded with reposts of fake airline giveaways. We covered it at the time,…