Growing up we were told never to share our personal information on the internet. Don’t immediately believe what people share. Double check links and information. Did we always listen? Of course not! But it did set a foundation for how we view online content today.
Does anyone remember “rickrolling”? If not, it was an internet prank where someone would trick you into clicking a link that unexpectedly led to the music video for Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” What a foresight into practicing security awareness! This meme had an entire generation second guessing the links they may have blindly clicked before.
With the rise of social media, people have become lackadaisical about the information they both share and read. Unfortunately, bad actors love when you do this. You many unknowingly share false content or maybe you comment on something you know is incorrect – which pushes the content higher for more people to see. Not only that, but with AI blindly gathering information, AI can now pretend to be anyone and everyone.
AI can take your voice and image and create life-like videos or voice overs. The FTC calls this “voice-cloning phishing scams”. Victims receive calls using a cloned voice from a panicked friend or relative demanding money for their “dire” situation. Businesses are also targets. Some companies lost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to this scam. If you find yourself receiving a call like this – hang up and call the person directly to verify.
Not only can you, your friends, family, or co-workers become targets – so can celebrities and politicians. With politics being front and center, “deepfakes” are on the rise. Deepfakes are highly realistic, AI-generated content that manipulates media to make it appear as though someone is saying or doing something they never actually did.
Sadly, social media giants such as Facebook have openly admitted they purposely show you negative and fake content to drive engagement. Knowing this, bad actors create spam pages or “click bait” just to draw in your attention. Don’t fall for it! Would the person in the video or image really do that or do you wish they did or didn’t?
The internet doesn’t have to be scary. Here are some tips to up your security game. Lock your social media profiles to private and enable multifactor authentication on everything. Don’t share information you wouldn’t want the whole world to know. Double check the information you’re viewing; is it too good to be true or make you angry? Always think before you click and never think you won’t become a victim of a phishing scam!
Additionally, it’s important to share security awareness with your friends, family, and co-workers. Make sure to remind the kids in your life to never share their personal information online!
