The Dark Side of Social Media Privacy and Security risks of Social Media - Essay Example

Privacy and Security Risks on Social Media Privacy and security risks on social media can be traced back to the 1960s when a counterculture movement called the Yippies published the Technological Assistant Program newsletter (Mazzini, 2014). The Technological Assistant Program was a phone phreaking newsletter that contained information on how to explore the telephone network unauthorized. It is around this time that hackers, who are people that seek and exploit the weaknesses in a computer network, came into existence. The reasons for hacking include profit making, protest, challenge as well as enjoyment and evaluating the weaknesses exploited in order to remove them(Wall, 2007). This subculture has evolved over the years to an extent that the computer underground is now a known community. Since the 60s, hacking on social media has greatly evolved to have different classes of hackers based on different attitudes they have. A group of hackers known as white hat hackers usually break social media security networks for non-malicious reasons hence they rarely engage in cybercrime. This hacker intends to test his/her own security system, perform penetration tests or carry out vulnerability assessments. There are those hackers that break the computer security for personal gain or other malicious intentions(Subashini & Kavitha, 2011). This group of hackers is known as the black hats, and their intention is to break the security of social networks for the purpose of destroying, modifying, stealing data or making the network unusable for those who are authorized to use it. Hacking in the early 80s was not meant for attacks and monetary gain as it is today, but top understand the system and make some kind of logic out of the chaos. However, the situation changed in the mid to late 80s when legislations were passed in the United States to tackle those who trespassed on computer and phone networks(Rieder, Huey-Burns, & Ott, 2012).Privacy and security issues on social media became apparent in the late 90s and early 2000s, especially in 1998 when Chris Wysopal and his friends discovered a way of shutting down the internet. This paper is going to show the privacy and security risks of social media and how they have affected people negatively. This study fits into the psychological realm in the sense that hackers employ some psychological game when stealing social network’s user private information(Alpcan & Basar, 2010). When hacking into social media, they use the data on experiential profiles to captivate the confidence of the stranger. This technique is commonly referred to as social engineering, whereby influential psychological strategies are employed to capitalize on the weakest link in social networks’ security systems. For instance, a social engineer can pretend to be an irritated executive and call the system administrator asking for his forgotten password so that he can be able to access his computer urgently. In some instances, hackers do pose as bank employees and call customers to ask for their credit card numbers. Social engineers may also pretend to lose their key card an as a result they kindly request an employee to let them into the office. Those social network account holders who have included more details on their personal and white-collar particulars in their profiles give hackers an easier time so that they can capitalize on those facts to gain their faith. For example, if an engineer who owns an online social network account blogs about the new projects he is running, it is possible for the hacker to disguise as one of the workers from that organization. The engineer is liable to trust this hacker since he has the engineer’s name and position in that company. This makes it easier for a hacker to try and get the password to the company’s confidential information or proprietary data that he can expose to other rival businesses in the market. Lack of built-in to systems that users of social networking sites can use authenticate that someone is indeed who they claim to be makes it easier for social engineers to access and exploit private information from social networks like Facebook, Twitter, My Space and LinkedIn(Lasica & Firestone, 2009). It is easier for the hacker to log onto a site like Facebook and create a free profile in such a way that his profile captures the interests of his subject. If the target agrees to be friends with the fraudster, then it is possible for the hacker to access the information on all of the target’s friends. The hacker can use such information on the target’s connections to construct and elaborate identity theft scam. Cases have also been reported of people dating online that lead to one party, who is the target sharing personal and private information to the hacker. Such people give their personal information easily because the fraudsters pretend to be so much in love with them, something that makes them easily moved to an extent of sharing private information. Therefore, those people who accept connection or friend requests from absolutely everyone may end up accepting hackers as friends, thus putting their security and privacy at risk. In order to analyze this dark side of the media, I am going to employ political economies as an analytical lens. In this case, it is important to understand the wider social and political contacts that surround the ability to own, produce, distribute, consume and creating of media which is the second element of digital strategy literacy(Buckingham, 2013). There are political economic considerations that are taken into account when shaping the thinking machines and communication systems. These considerations include a critical analysis of industries within the social media as well as institutions, the changing profiles and media ownership politics, and the intercommunication between standard and independent media. From the sociological point of view, media systems strengthen, challenge and influence social relationships as well as impacting how citizens of a given country are given a representation and or an exclusion from contributing to sensitive issues affecting them. A country’s policy on licensing may end up creating monopolies which may push those who feel excluded from the system to engage acts of violating privacy. The licensing of mobile operating companies may lock the emerging companies out of the market, which may necessitate the organizations locked out to engage in hacking activities. Youths who feel excluded from the economic system may spread inflammatory messages on social media that may cause civil war. It is possible to manufacture viruses and feed then into social sites for networking so that those affected are compelled to buy antiviruses from manufacturers of those viruses. The cultural studies lens on the other hand mainly relies on the theory of consumerism whereby a consumer can apt, reject or contest the significance of a given product(Beverland & Farrely, 2010). According to this view, consumption plays equally an important role since the manner in which products are consumed by the consumers give meaning to those particular products. White hat hackers represent that group of consumers who challenge a product in the market through exploring its weaknesses. Theirs is to challenge the meaning of a product like the security system of a social network for non-malicious intentions. Most organizations’ goal is to keep the public spending on their products. Service providing companies are busy giving their consumers cheaper data bundles for browsing which influences them to give out much of their personal information on social media. With cheaper browsing rates, people can chat, network and connect online, making them vulnerable to sharing of their private information. Most social networking sites require that people give personal information like their names, location, mobile phone number and place of work in order to join them(Kaplan &Haenlin, 2010). People can reveal their most intimate thoughts on Facebook, and marketing companies on the other hand are busy collecting our personal information without our knowledge. As such, privacy of the users of such sites is jeopardized since their personal information is being used by others. Teens are the most affected group since they freely give up their personal data unaware of the public nature of the internet. This is unlike the adults who are more concerned about invasion of privacy, thus bringing about the privacy paradox. It is possible for online attackers to carry out identity theft especially when such information as the person’s social security number is provided. One can easily use the information obtained from social networks and databases to predict all the nine digits of an individual’s social security number. It is easier for drug cartels to engage in online drug trafficking since communication has no boundaries. In some other instants, cone men and women claiming to be sales agents for some companies may end up coning innocent people in the name of striking business deals. This is possible since most advertising companies have resolved to online marketing on social media. Some social networks like Facebook and My Space have large following that makes them ideal for carrying out marketing strategies. Most users think all friends on social media are good friends; hence they end up giving them their most intimate information. Sometimes dating on social media results in the victims engaging in sexual acts that spread deadly diseases like HIV/AIDS. Social media encourage stalking, whereby an individual can build a web of friends and connections and share with them their photos, location, phone numbers and whereabouts(Jenkins, 2009). When users post a lot of personal information about themselves on social networking sites, it makes it easier for them to become victims of stalking. Most Facebook profiles are visible profiles and a larger percentage of them contain information on their location, place of work or college they are studying. This makes it possible for them to be tracked since other users are able to predict their exact locations at specific times. Reports indicate that some Facebook apps do leak information about the identity of those who are using them to advertising and online tracking companies without their knowledge. During the app installation, a Facebook user is prompted to accept certain terms and conditions and upon clicking allow the app receives an access token. This token contains the user’s private information like photos which these apps leak to advertisers without the user’s knowledge. Leaking such information puts an individual’s online safety and privacy at risk, and his account can be easily hacked. Hacked accounts may post abusive or threatening messages on one’s timeline, thus putting the individual’s security at risk. Some research companies engage in tracking people’s activities as well as harvesting of their personal data for compiling and selling to other companies. These details are then used to design the adverts that target these individuals without the owners’ consent. Although tses companies may argue that people give up their personal information freely, this is a serious breach of people’s privacy. In 2011, a media research company known as Nielsen Company doing data scrapping on PatientsLikeMe’s forum, where people freely discuss their emotional problems. These users think they are sharing their personal problems on a secure environment hence sharing their personal information may have had psychological implications on them. It is unethical for an individual or individuals to use others’ personal information for their private gain without authorization. Social media users can improve their security and privacy through the building better and stronger passwords. This is possible through mixing capital and small letters while setting their passwords. Longer passwords of more than 8 characters, avoiding words found in dictionaries and easy to guess words can also help build a stronger password. One should avoid using their names, place of work names, residential area names or names of their pets when setting their online account passwords. Use of birthday dates, relatives’ names and zip codes that can be easily looked up must be avoided when building passwords. People should share personal information with the friends that they personally know. Avoiding befriending everyone or accepting all sorts of friend requests can also help secure one’s account. The above mentioned measures will help secure the social media accounts from possible hacking and posting messages unintended by the user. In order to control data scraping, one should control the amount of information that put on social networking sites. It is advisable to edit down the information, in case it was shared earlier to prevent further data scrapping. If possible, clients should not share information on their location, place of work, physical and postal addresses for this may enable attackers track them down. Very confidential information should not be shares even with close friends since they too may turn against the account holder. Parents need to talk to their kids on problems associated with sharing personal information publicly. Using software to monitors their internet use is also important to ensure that proper guidance is provided whenever they carelessly share their private information. Use of some software with parental control like BullGuard internet security will help block some internet sites or contents. Social media users should avoid some apps that leak their private information to attackers. All social media users need to critically analyze and evaluate the apps they intend to install on their mobile phones. This will be a key step towards minimizing data scrapping as well as unauthorized access to their personal information on social networking sites. They should be aware of fraudsters posing as employers or employees in order to get some private information from them. They should avoid online dating which may lead to sex predation or online victimization. People should not trust everybody they meet online as friends or those whose initiate chats for the purpose of dating. There is need to encourage online social behaviours that are positive in order to minimize or even do away with the issue of online victimization. This implies that we should avoid negative social behaviours like aggressive attitudes and discussions on sex related topics that motivate offenders to achieve their objectives. This however requires that individuals get sensitized on the dangers of engaging in negative social behaviours in online platforms. Civil societies and individual governments must work hard to ensure that relevant information on social media is provided for the citizens. In the wake of globalization, the world has become a smaller village through social networking. People get to chat, make friends, do business and share personal experiences on social media. However, this comes at a cost since there are sociological and psychological implications of this sharing that amount to threats to security and privacy. Sharing personal information on social media should only be encouraged among family members. Any sharing should be done cautiously as it may threaten the security of the individual involved in the sharing. Some social engineering crimes can be avoided when people stop posting sensitive information on their places of work or the kind of projects they are currently dealing with. Availability of very sensitive information in the social networking sites has made it easier for attackers, increasing the privacy and security issues. Users should take first steps in improving their own security and privacy in online media since individual companies may not guarantee them the required security. This is due to the fact that attackers will always device new mechanisms to counter the efforts made by the social networking companies to secure client accounts. This calls for all social media users to be always careful on how they use these sites for socialization purposes. 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