The internet has become a blessing for people around the world as it has brought the entire world to our monitors, and everyone is just a click away. Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and Twitter are the most popular cyber technology blessings that have made us their dependent in just a few years.
However, with the use of this communication software, we have also become vulnerable to the demons of the networking world – ransomware, phishing, pharming, etc. These internet hackers have made it extremely difficult for a common man to use networking sites without feeling threatened or without suspecting the credibility of the website.
It should not come as a surprise that many users are already on the list of these ransomware creators. About 40% of the users are online all the time, and most of the time, they are buying or selling things, which requires giving away their personal information. A hacker usually monitors the activity of a user to determine how regularly the victim is using his credit card or password. In some cases, the user is unaware of how the unknown website can damage the computer that they keep making the same mistake, which results in system defects. It is important to understand that many consumer products are heavily relying on the use of these social networking platforms to sell their products and promote their businesses. They have started giving discounts on online shopping to attract more customers and to sell more products.
Cybercrimes using social media in 2017, resulted in a huge catastrophe when a Russian hacker sent a tweet claiming a holiday package to the senior official at the Pentagon. The tweet seemed harmless but turned to be malicious, and a lot of data was lost.
Recently Facebook was also a victim of the cyber world crime when about a million of its users’ information was exposed to the cyber world. The hackers had gained access to sensitive information by using Facebook’s ‘view as’ option, which gives the user a view of how others see their accounts. By entering through that, they were made vulnerable to many attackers. It was a dark day for Facebook officials.
Platforms like YouTube have also been affected by malicious malware in many parts of the world. The famous song, Despacito was taken down after the attackers had replaced the original file with a new one and once the user tried to access it, the file wasn’t working and a hacker’s message would appear on the screen.
Cybercrime will keep rising, but it is our responsibility to make sure that we keep our systems clean and cyber worm free. We can take extra precautionary measures while using these networking sites to make sure that the computer system does not get affected or attacked, and that we don’t lose our data to a cybercrime attacker at any given point.
