Threats to our privacy in the Cyber Age

There may be differences of opinion about calling the present era the Internet era, the cyber era, the silicon era, or the digital era, but each of these terms tells how deeply cyber technology has penetrated the lives of human civilization. Gen Z is also almost completely dependent on the internet. If we think about Gen Alpha, they will probably be seen as biologically connected to cyber technology in the future.

Cyber ​​technology has not only entered the life of a common man, but it also controls our daily life and the entire system. Cyber technology controls entire global communication, defense, and banking systems, too.

In this situation, when the internet has become the medium of most of our financial, personal, and social activities, the biggest question arises about the security of our privacy.

The Fappening Scam was a shameful incident of 2014 in which many famous Hollywood celebrities fell prey. By breaking into Apple's cloud services suite iCloud, some cyber criminals made public the confidential photos of many celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Jill Scott on various websites like 4chan, Imgur, and Reddit.

This is not the only incident. Cases of cybersecurity breaches are constantly increasing. Sometimes the reason is some negligence or ignorance of the user, and sometimes cyber criminals are successful in breaching the cybersecurity.

Every time the debate about the advantages and disadvantages of the internet flares up again.

Interference of cyber technology in our personal lives.

The Internet has breached the private lives of every common and elite person. For common people, apart from being just a medium of entertainment or communication, the internet is also completely affecting their professional lives.

Are we making our privacy public on social media?

Social media has become a grievous addiction for Gen Z. They are expressing their entire social life, expressing their emotions, happiness about their success, and expressing their nostalgia through social media. At present, any person lives more in their virtual world than in the real world.

Chris Evans, Cardi B, Chris Cuomo, Alison Pill, Chrissy Teigen, Tori Spelling, Indian actress Sri Reddy, Trisha, and many more celebrities sometimes inadvertently share their private photos or videos on social media platforms. Due to which they and their fans find themselves in a scandalous situation.

Social media has become a mirror of any person's social and personal life, too. Not only is the contact information of users on social media profiles anonymous, but due to sharing many reels and photos, even very confidential information becomes public on social media profiles. And there is no doubt that users adopt a very careless attitude and share very personal information too.

The increasing use of social media has become a big threat to the privacy of users in many ways.

1. Privacy Setting Loopholes:

Various social media platforms have many security provisions to keep the personal data of users safe. But usually users weaken that security circle due to a lack of information.

1. Weak Password: The most common mistake is a weak password. Most users make common passwords like 123456, 11111111, 123456789, qwerty, or their date of birth or their mobile phone number as their password. Some people use their spouse's name as their password. Those are easily predictable. 80% of organizational data breaches happen due to weak passwords.
2. Disabling Security Features: Due to a lack of information, most of the users make their social media profiles insecure by not using the security provisions provided by the social media platforms, which their profile becomes vulnerable to fraudsters.
3. Multi-Device Login: Users often log in to their social media profiles on multiple devices, many of which are not even their personal devices. If a social media profile remains logged in on another device, the owner of that device can take control of the profile and misuse it.
4. Multiple Profiles: Often, users create multiple profiles on social media accounts due to the limited resources provided by the profile. Another big reason for multiple profiles is forgetting the login details and creating another profile. But in this way, the user himself destroys the authenticity of his profile by creating a situation of doubt. This also increases the possibility of his profile being hijacked or a fake or cloned profile being created.
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6. Data Mining and Profiling:

In this process, by collecting the information shared by the user, maximum information about the user is collected, and this is used to trap the user in any way. This information is most useful for a phishing attack.

A common fraud in which another fake profile or clone profile of any user is created. That profile is maintained on the basis of information collected from his/her social media account. And by linking it to his/her friends and relatives, some financial fraud is done with them.

For this purpose, the personal experiences shared by us, our travels, likes and dislikes, and other personal information become weapons for cyber thugs, with the help of which they make our fake profile so perfect that our old friends think it is our profile.

1. Location Tracking:

Whenever we are at a tourist destination or attending a party in a beautiful hotel, we often share our real-time location on social media. While travelling, users often share on their social media accounts which airport we are at and which flight we are traveling on. Many times, we share our real-time live location through Geotagging. This is the biggest lapse in our security. Due to this, it is easy for fraudsters and burglars to understand our life patterns.

A burglar in Orange County, California, targeted the homes of 33 women in 2015. He learned that when women were not home, their travel details were shared on social media and used GPS data embedded in photos posted on Facebook and Instagram to break into their homes and commit burglaries. The burglar stole more than $250,000 worth of electronics and jewelry, according to court records.

1. Data Sharing With Other Parties:

Users usually share their personal and financial data with third-party partners or other third-party partners. After seeing advertisements shown on social media platforms. Many times, users do not even check the authenticity of that party.

This leads to users themselves giving their personal information to unwanted elements.

1. Hacking and Account Takeovers:

Hackers take over the user's account (ATO) due to any security lapse or weak security technology of the social media platform. Thus, after gaining full control over that account, they misuse it by obtaining the user's personal information from that account or use those accounts for any unwanted purpose.

In 2024, 29% of youth in the USA have faced account hacking. More than 75% of security leaders consider account takeover as one of the top four cyber threats faced by organizations globally. Account takeover fraud resulted in losses of about $13 billion in 2023.

1. Social media is social, not private:

Users often share their personal experiences and information on social media profiles without realizing that it is a public communication platform. So sharing personal information on social media or having too intimate conversations with friends is a big security lapse for our privacy.

This information can be used by fraudsters and cyber criminals to harass people and gain unauthorized benefits from them.

Your digital wallet and digital payment systems can be a favorite target for tech-savvy fraudsters.

Digital wallets are becoming the future financial transaction platforms. After UPI, in India, the digital payment system is used the most for transactions; it has become even more secure and reliable. One of its good aspects is that it makes financial transactions and maintenance convenient for the users; it also controls the financial transactions of black money. But the negligence of the user or any lapse in the security of the digital wallet makes it the most convenient medium of financial robbery.

In 2024, financial transactions worth $3,073 were done through digital wallets in the USA. So in 2023, a total of $3.8 million in financial fraud took place in the US due to digital wallets, which was 68% more than in 2022.

It has now become the most favorite medium of financial transaction for fraudsters who extort money by fraudulently making phone calls or other means.

1. Users' privacy concerns

To use a digital wallet, every user has to share all their personal information and banking details with the digital wallet or digital payment system platform. However, all platforms claim complete protection of privacy and also have the necessary cybersecurity arrangements. Apart from this, governments also implement rules and provisions for the safety of users.

But even then, there is always a possibility of a breach in the personal and confidential data of users. This information can be misused in various ways. This information is sold to advertisers or other companies, or financial fraud can also be committed by misusing the user's banking information.

In 2019, the confidential information of the users of Capital One Financial Corporation was unauthorizedly breached. Information related to the payment history, contact information, and credit scores of their customers and credit card applicants was stolen. In this digital breach, 100,000 Social Security numbers and nearly 80,000 linked bank account numbers were stolen. However, Capital One also claimed to fix it immediately. But according to the FBI, this is the biggest theft of digital confidential information in history to date. 100 million customers in the U.S. and Canada were affected by this incident. Later in 2022, Thompson was convicted by the court in this case.

1. Centralization of data and power creates a single point of failure.

In digital wallets and other digital payment systems, financial data, transaction history, location details, and other personal information are under the control and security of a single entity. If a company experiences a data breach or mishandles user information, this centralization of data can create risks. In this situation, the possibility of a single point of failure increases, which may lead the user into financial troubles for some time. Due to the negligence of that entity, the financial risks for the user increase a lot, apart from the violation of their privacy. Apart from private information, these companies also have information about the financial behavior of the user, so in this situation, this information can also be used for vested interests to control the mindset of users.

Mobile apps are intruding too much on our personal lives.

The Ghibli Art Style developed by Studio Ghibli is trending a lot among the youth. The pictures of Ghibli Art are viral all over social media. It turns the real image of the user into a creative animation. However, this is not the first such app. Such apps have come before as well. Which have also become quite popular. But users carelessly upload their pictures on them just for entertainment. In this way, they are violating their own privacy. The possibility of misuse of their personal pictures cannot be ruled out.

There is a plethora of third-party apps trending on mobile for entertainment or other uses. Some apps claim to make new friends nearby, while some apps talk about keeping an eye on health. So some apps are used only for entertainment. Financial transactions are also done by the user on these apps for more facilities and features or other purposes. The user shares his personal information. While most of these are not even in accordance with security standards. The information provided by users on health-related apps is used by pharmaceutical companies and other companies to fulfill their vested interests by influencing the user's behavior and their health-related concerns and habits.

Google is facing a lawsuit for violating the privacy of many of its users. The search engine giant is accused of collecting personal data from people's phones when they had turned off the button to prevent tracking. This lawsuit against Google was filed in 2020. Google filed an appeal in the court to end the matter, but the court was not satisfied with Google's arguments, and Google is still embroiled in this case. While Google is one of the most trusted tech companies in the world.