How much is enough to share on social media? This goes true not only for our personal use but for business purposes. Nowadays, social media has proliferated with various information and content, and we have to use discretion when sharing our own content. Unknowingly, we may be giving cyber thieves and criminals information to provide them with a chance to hack our accounts and even our business emails.
For instance, those games on Facebook, which seem innocent, asking what is your favorite pet and the name of your pet, or the Royal Name Game asking you your royal name that starts with the title Lord/Lady and then requesting the name of your grandparents, the name of your first pet, and the street you grew up on (revealing the place of your birth) are security questions that are usually asked to change passwords or reveal passwords or have access to your confidential accounts.
One of the most popular games on Facebook uses Name Tests, which allows you to pick three colors that will reveal your personality. Some may say you are too stupid to even answer or worse, post the truth. But there are gullible ones who fall into this trap. Sometimes even intelligent people can also fall into the trap. If you think about it, why would somebody pay to sponsor a game on social media to get anyone to play on it? There is this game that asks, “How rare is your intelligence type?”. Whatever your answer can be seen globally since it is a sponsored game, and when they give you back the results of your tests, it goes straight to your feed, and of course, the results will always give a higher score to lure your friends to play the game, too.
This is the personal sharing of personal information. However, sometimes people share their information, which can also affect the company’s confidentiality. For instance, I saw in one account that shows her current pay and compares it with her previous pay at another company or someone just expressing his joy that he was given a raise, which is supposedly confidential information per companies’ policies. Someone is also posting quotes about a poor boss, or a good boss, a toxic co-worker, or anything that could reflect on the company’s environment could be a breach of confidentiality. Even just commenting on a post that could divulge a company’s confidential data can be a violation of data privacy.
On the other hand, businesses particularly professional firms or service provider firms, should also be careful to share information about client wins – showing pictures of the clients who just signed up with them. This is acceptable if they are permitted to share. But without the client’s approval and previous agreement to share the name as marketing collateral of the company, they should avoid doing so. However, it is acceptable to promote your client’s business without telling people that such a business is your client.
These are supposedly confidential information, and people may just be sincerely innocent, so it is important to know what to post and what content we should share on our social media accounts. What is at risk is when information is captured by cyber criminals or thieves. Anyone can be a target for hackers – big or small, individual or business and according to a Google report at least 20% of social media accounts will be compromised at some point. An average of 1.4 billion social media accounts are hacked every month, according to a report dated December 10, 2024 by station.com. And from 2021-2022, the number of social media accounts that were hacked saw an increase of 1,000 percent, according to the same report.
Social media is here to stay. Most of us have social media accounts, and it is undisputable that there are benefits, too. But we should be responsible users because we are protecting not only our own data but those of our family and friends, the organization we work for, and all those in our network.
It is like the flu; when you sneeze, the others catch the virus. Users than its top
Wilma Miranda is a Managing Partner of Inventor, Miranda & Associates, CPAs and member of the Board of Directors of KPS Outsourcing, Inc. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinion of these institutions.)