How do hackers use social media to steal information?
Cybercriminals use social media to identify victims and steal their personal information. By posing as an online friend, a fraudster could trick you into sending money or sharing PII. By following your feed, a phisher could gather details for a highly targeted attack.
Just like any thief, a hacker will choose the most vulnerable targets they can find. But instead of using lock picks to steal from your home or business, they use software to steal your personal data. Hackers will often try to glean information such as credit card numbers or bank account information.
The general function of social hacking is to gain access to restricted information or to a physical space without proper permission.
These crimes could range from using your personal details to target you with scams, or to apply for credit, driver's licences or passports. Someone might even potentially use your social media profile photo and location to impersonate you on dating websites.
With stolen personal information criminals can target victims with phishing attacks. In phishing scams victims are lured into giving information like credit card details willingly to criminals by masking the scam as something legit. If criminals get access to very sensitive information, they can also extort the victim.
name and address. credit card or bank account numbers. Social Security number. medical insurance account numbers.
- Phishing and SMiShing. Phishing involves sending you a fraudulent email that looks to be authentic, say an email from your bank asking you to verify your account information. ...
- Dumpster Diving. ...
- Wireless Hacking. ...
- Fake Lottery Winnings, Jobs, Etc. ...
- ATM and Payment Machines.
Once hackers have learned everything they can from your social media profiles, they commonly use that information to manipulate you into giving up more data or money. To do so, cyber criminals craft targeted advertisem*nts and malicious phishing emails based on personal information.
Your social media account can be hacked in a number of ways, such as through a phishing scam or by downloading a malicious app. Once a hacker has access to your account, they can do a lot of damage, like stealing your personal information, posting offensive content or contacting your friends and family.
You Can Avoid a Social Media Hack
Social media account hacks occur more often than people might think. Even so, you can take proactive steps to make them less likely to happen to you.
Does social media steal data?
Bots and botnets are prevalent on social media and are used to steal data, send spam, and launch distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks that help cybercriminals gain access to people's devices and networks.
Most social media sites have apps that ask for permission to access your account information before you can install them. This is one way hackers steal your details to commit fraud. Unconsciously (or sometimes, consciously), you provide personal details you would not share otherwise on your social media accounts.
Active social media users are 30% more likely to be affected by identity fraud; account holders on Snapchat, Facebook and Instagram are the most likely victims, with a 46% higher risk.
As with all of these types of attacks, the main aim is to trick legitimate users into divulging sensitive information or to spread malware.
It could even be a case of relationship sabotage, or corporate espionage. In such cases, your hacker might send nasty messages to your friends, expose private pictures, or delete all your contacts. On other occasions, the aim is more commercial. You might get blackmailed.
Smartphones have brought all our private accounts and data into a single, convenient location — making our phones the perfect target for a hacker. Everything from banking to email and social media is linked into your phone.
