The recent report stated that all the social media platforms can act as goldmines for cyber criminals to identify and target key individuals for a successful treasure.
Be careful while you next time post your details about job and workplace description on any social media websites. You might be the potential target of cyber criminals and hackers. Experts of Cybercrime and forensic consultants say hackers can try to dig the social media database of employees of organizations they intend to attack and send them phishing mails.
A recent report by EY on 'Cybercrime Incidents in India' states how social media is coming up as one of the largest risk zones for cyber-attacks, with 90% of the 160 top executives identifying it as a major source of cyber-attacks are giving response to the survey.
The report stated that employees post crucial details related to their work profile and workplace on social networking websites. The social media platforms that contain employee’s data act as goldmines for cyber criminals to identify and target key individuals for a successful treasure.
The report, highlighted the fact that excessive use of social media by employees could increase the risk of cyber-attacks of employees with low awareness of risks from social media could prove disastrous for the organization by making it more vulnerable to hacks. "It is common for individuals to have their personal information and job profile available and accessible on social media platforms, making the hacker's task easier," the report stated.
Aleks Gostev, chief security expert at Kaspersky Labs which provides cyber security solutions to business entities said in an interaction with ET, how in the case of the Bangladesh central bank heist it was reportedly an employee who had put 'SWIFT operator' in his job description on a social media website, thereby making him an easy target.
SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a global interbank messaging platform between banks meant for financial transactions like international remittances and others.
"Such disclosure of information makes employees vulnerable to external
attacks," he said.
Sector wise, financial services with 24% of the attacks along with technology, media and telecommunication sectors with 26% were the most impacted by cyber attacks.
Further, with the increased pace of digitisation of payments and technology at financial institutions, the threat of cyber attacks have grown manifold, the report stated. The demands put through Ransomware are cryptocurrency like Bitcoins, vulnerabilities on mobile phones and loopholes in the digital payments space are the emerging potential spaces for cyber-attacks in India.
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