Did you know that social media profiles are an invaluable resource for cybercriminals?
Social media users openly share a lot of information (e.g., photos, vacations, and locations) with their friends and family. Some users even voluntarily share their personally identifiable information on their social media accounts. However, sharing excessive personal content may have adverse effects on social media users.
For example, attackers can use your information — sourced from social media platforms like LinkedIn and Facebook — to impersonate you or your contacts.
Known as pretexting, this social engineering method gives cybercriminals the information needed to duplicate account profiles and present themselves as someone they aren’t. Using your social media connections, attackers often send friend requests to targets with the aim of infiltrating his or her social circle to gain private or confidential information.
To securely share information on social media, remember these helpful tips:
n Privacy settings. Carefully create and frequently review privacy settings for all social media accounts, especially when changes to terms of service and privacy policies occur.
n Unintentional disclosure. The information you post about yourself may reveal much of your personal history, as well as the answers to your online secret security questions.
n Data is forever. Remember that even if you have secured your settings and determined who can view your posts, all of your information is being collected, mined, and stored on the social media platform servers — perhaps forever.
For more information about social media security, visit the CyberSafe at USPS® pages on Blue (blue.usps.gov/cyber) and LiteBlue (liteblue.usps.gov/cyber).
— Corporate Information Security Office,
Chief Information Security Officer
and Digital Solutions, 9-9-21
