Think Before You Click

October is National Cybersecurity Awareness Month (NCSAM). The fact that we require a month dedicated to this cause to raise awareness of this issue drove me to write this article about the need for a month-long awareness campaign in the first place.

Don't Over Share

The theme of NCSAM this year is to " Own IT. Secure IT. Protect IT ," and part of that is to make sure that we update the privacy settings on social media. Often these settings on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have a default that favours the social media companies rather than the users. Users should make sure these companies aren't sharing your personal information and that it isn't being provided to third parties without your consent.

In fact, one of the biggest problems people make with social media is a desire to connect with seemingly the entire world. Part of the problem is that we're so accustomed to seeing photos and video blogs from influencers and celebrities that we also feel the need to broadcast personal information.

Of course many users feel safe because they're only sharing to their "friends" and "followers" – but who exactly are these people? Social media has created a type of faux connections with people we really don't know. In other words, just because some has "friended" you on Facebook or follows you on Twitter doesn't mean they're actually your friend.

Smart Social Media Practices When Traveling

For those who are going on a dream vacation there is certainly the temptation to post videos from a fabulous destination, but it can be fatal as this acts as a broadcast that you're away from home! Posting your vacation plans in advance or during your trip, even on seemingly private social media accounts, can put your home and belongings at risk. If malicious users stumble across the information and know where you live, or are cyber savvy enough to snoop and find out, they could plan a break-in and steal from you while you’re out of town. Unexpected things happen in life!

Some socio-economic/statistical data

1 . An Australian regulator has filed a lawsuit against Google alleging it mislead Android users on how it collects and uses personal location data. It accused Google of not informing users that they should turn off two settings, 'Location history' and 'Web & App Activity',to stop Google from collecting such data. This matter is scheduled for hearing on 14th November.

2 . Amazon Web Services (AWS) is joining Deep Fake Detection Challenge (DFDC), driven by companies like Facebook and Microsoft, to flight against deep fakes. Amazon will provide machine learning experts and offer $ 1mn AWS credits to teams that need cloud services Facebook is also releasing 5,000 sample videos to help researchers create detection tools. DFDC will release the full dataset in December.

3. According to Bloomberg reports, Google employees have accused the internet giant of creating a tool to spy on them in an alleged attempt to suppress them for voicing out their criticisms against the company.