WHAT YOU POST ONLINE MAY
LEAVE YOU VULNERABLE TO CYBER ATTACKS
Youths’ tendencies to overshare online may lead to increased chances of cyber attacks like hacking.
By Stephanie Lim and Shauna Teo
What was the last thing that you posted online?
Among 605 respondents aged 16 to 29, 57 per cent agreed that they “share some information online”, whereas among 301 respondents aged 45 and above, 32 per cent agree that they “share some information online”, according to a survey by RICE Media and Milieu Insight.
Shirley Woon, 54, a counsellor and psychotherapist at The Blue Pencil, says, “Your location, what you do, where are you most of the time, your thoughts, your preference…all these could invite undesirable characters into your life, which could put yourself or your loved ones in danger.”
She adds that youths are driven by emotion rather than logic, preferring to share their thoughts on social media instead of writing them down due to the convenience.
These sharing tendencies can lead to consequences like an increased risk of impersonation scams.
Dr Weihan Goh, an Assistant Professor at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), who teaches the Information Security degree programme, says, “If everybody knows everything about you then hackers can also know a lot about you, they can harvest the information, they can use it to impersonate you, they can use it to try to attack your account.”
He adds, “If I'm an attacker, or a scammer, and I want to build a profile of you so that I can impersonate you, by looking through all these online postings I can roughly build a pseudo-profile of yourself.”
Dr Jiow Hee Jhee, 49, an Associate Professor and Digital Communications and Integrated Media programme leader at SIT, adds that the tendency to overshare online may also give clues to one’s passwords, for instance if one shares their favourite song online and they set that as their password then they are at higher risk of being hacked.
For Natalie Goh, 19, a Eunoia Junior College graduate, this was the reason she had her social media account hacked. She shared her information regarding her login details with a close friend, only to have her account breached without her knowledge after she had a falling out with her friend. She discovered this through the app’s login history, and revised her passwords to be in line with the recommended password strength to prevent similar incidents.
“When you’re closer to someone you would have easier access to their things,” says Natalie. “If there were security questions, they would probably know the answers more easily, which will allow them to have access to your accounts.”
Apart from this there are also other reasons why youths fall prey to hacking attempts.
Infographic and statistics by: Shauna Teo and Stephanie Lim
According to a poll, 64.8 per cent of respondents claim they take cyber security seriously, however, 43.5 per cent of respondents report that they have been hacked before.
Dr Jiow explains, “Perceived vulnerability, that means whether youths feel that they will be hacked, they are typically a bit more complacent, they feel that ‘Oh you know in terms of hacking, someone guessing my password, I think this will happen to somebody else it probably won’t happen to me.”
Dr Jiow raises the idea that youths feel the consequences of being hacked is not severe, leading to their complacency.
“The consequences may not only affect you but could be far reaching to your friends,” says Dr Jiow, explaining that hackers have the ability to take advantage of one’s information in impersonation scams, which may affect their friends.
For instance, video conference platform Zoom soared in popularity during the pandemic due to its use for meetings and classes. “There was a discussion going on about people having their Zoom meeting rooms unprotected, so other people can join, once they join the meeting unauthorised, they can start spamming with lewd pictures and all those kinds of things,” says Dr Goh.
Dr Jiow suggests, “Don’t anyhow add friends, ensure that you have a good password, share responsibly, don’t share your password, don’t share other people’s passwords, don’t share clues that may help scammers guess your password.”
As Natalie has learnt her lesson, she says, “The most important thing to consider when regarding online safety is to discern who you can really trust with your personal details.”