How to avoid gifting your information to online crooks this holiday season: Trend Micro Offers 10 Top Tips for Safe Social Networking
OTTAWA, Dec. 15, 2014 /CNW/ - Posting information on line can be a gift that keeps on giving. According to a recent survey from Internet security leader, Trend Micro, only 38% of people know how to limit what they post online and, as a result, run the risk of leaving a trail easy for cyber thieves to follow.
"Most of us are far too free and trusting with our personal information online," according to Mark Nunnikhoven, Trend Micro's Vice President of Cloud and Emerging Technologies. "We don't realize how quickly little bits add together to form a startlingly accurate picture of our personal lives. This unintentional disclosure of personal data can have very real consequences, making the work of criminals much easier."
To ensure social media users do not "gift" their personal information to cyber crooks this holiday season, Trend Micro offers 10 top tips to help avoid a digital disaster:
- What goes on line stays on line. Only post updates or photos you won't mind sharing with strangers.
- Keep tabs on all your tags and mentions. Getting tagged in a post might seem harmless, but it can also decrease your privacy.
- Make sure only your intended audience sees your posts. If your friends have less restrictive settings, it's possible for a wider audience to see your posts.
- Never click on a link posted or sent by someone you don't know
- Use a two-factor authentication for Facebook as well as any other social media account you have and activate any other security measures you have access to.
- Check privacy policies and adjust settings to your comfort level. Most sites keep their privacy policies in locations that are easy to find. It's important to keep track of them because they can change anytime.
- Double-check your security. You can use privacy scanning software to check current privacy settings in different social networks to ensure your information remains private.
- Report and block spammers. This can help sanitize your feed as well as notify a social media site to take down the spammers' accounts.
- Always verify with your contacts any link they send your way, preferably through another form of correspondence.
- Be careful whom you accept as a friend on social networks. Identity thieves can and do create fake profiles in order to steal your personal information.
About Trend Micro
Trend Micro Incorporated, a global leader in security software, strives to make the world safe for exchanging digital information. Built on 25 years of experience, our solutions for consumers, businesses and governments provide layered data security to protect information on mobile devices, endpoints, gateways, servers and the cloud. Trend Micro enables the smart protection of information, with innovative security technology that is simple to deploy and manage, and fits an evolving ecosystem. All of our solutions are powered by cloud-based global threat intelligence, the Trend Micro™ Smart Protection Network™ infrastructure, and are supported by more than 1,200 threat experts around the globe. For more information, visit TrendMicro.com.
SOURCE: Trend Micro Canada
Media Contact: Beja Rodeck, [email protected], 905-885-5945
Share this article