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Sooner or later, you will realize that you are putting too much personal information on the web. In this article, we'll talk about how to prevent social media accounts from telling cybercriminals anything unnecessary about you.
The internet can be a dangerous place, as the culture of sharing information on social media often conflicts with security and privacy best practices. Most of us have at some point shared information about our birthday, photos of our loved ones, details of where we live and where we come from, and other content that might not be posted online at all.
In the worst case, the information you share online can be used for physical threats or extortion of large sums of money. Basic safety rules while surfing the Internet are almost the same everywhere. It doesn't depend at all on what online services you use.
Before we move on to specific actions regarding your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, you should understand the following: the better you protect yourself online, the less chances that attackers will misuse your personal information.
In general, you need to be sure that your friends or social media followers (with limited access to your posts) are people you trust completely. You should also search your post history for personal information, as it can be used to steal your data, gain access to your accounts, or track your physical address. If necessary, delete any personal posts or dialogs that confuse you. In addition, you can check the photos of friends you are tagged with and remove the tags if they are not needed.
There are several ways to find out your actual residential address. If you are an eBay seller and share links on your personal social media accounts, please note that your address is usually published along with your lots.
If there is a high probability of receiving threats from third parties, it is best to immediately restrict access, set new privacy settings and, if necessary, pause, delete or unpublish new posts in your accounts. In this case, you should take a screenshot of the threat message and report it to the law enforcement agencies.
A few more steps you can take is to turn off tracking your location, turn on two-factor authentication to protect your accounts, back up and delete old posts across all accounts where possible. You should also consider deleting social media accounts that you no longer use, especially those that contain data about you.
Now let's move on to the list of actions for each social network separately.
Twitter
The security of the social network Twitter recently came under scrutiny when some hackers managed to get to the site's admin panel. This allowed the fraudster to gain access to the resource and publish records on behalf of the largest verified accounts in order to receive huge funds for them. None of the measures below can protect you if the social network itself is compromised. However, these tips will help protect you and your data from common and more common threats.
In your Twitter account itself, make sure that location tags are disabled for your tweets (Settings> Privacy & Security> Location Info). This option may be accidentally enabled, for example, if you've reinstalled the mobile app, so it's worth checking its status from time to time.
In the "Find you and contacts" section, turn off the display of your email addresses and phone numbers . This will prevent people looking for your account from using other personal information about you to do so. Follow this advice if you want to remain anonymous.
If you check the box next to the "Protect your Tweets" option on the home screen under "Privacy and Security", only people who are your followers will be able to see your entries in your account. Tweets will also not be publicly searchable. You will not be able to send private messages and tag on photos.
Twitter can get violent if you want to delete a lot of your tweets or unsubscribe from a bunch of people within a short period of time. Your account may even be blocked, so it's better to immediately create a new one for yourself and not bother about it. This is an official recommendation from the resource itself .
However, there are a number of useful tools like TweetDelete and Tweepi that will make it easier for you to unsubscribe from multiple users and delete a lot of tweets at the same time. Keep in mind that Twitter rules say it can take a significant amount of time to unsubscribe from hundreds of people or completely delete your post history.
Create a backup of your posts before you use these tools, downloading data from Twitter through your account settings. Remember to restrict access of such tools to your account as soon as you finish deleting and copying.
There are also dedicated tools for exporting your followers. The Twlets Chrome extension is a great option, but you'll have to register if you want to download information for over 1000 subscribers. Twitter-exporting Google Sheet by Martin Hoxsey is a free tool, but you also have to create your own.
Alternatively, you can simply create a new Twitter account and leave only the followers you want there.
Facebook
You will find basic Facebook privacy options in the settings menu. On the Security and Login tab, you need to enable two-factor authentication, check which devices are already authorized in the system, and enable unauthorized login alerts if you suspect someone might be trying to hack into your account.
On the "Privacy" tab, you can decide who will see your posts (including those already published): only friends or yourself. You should also set the friends list to be visible only for yourself or for friends, disable the search for your account by email address and phone number. You can also restrict the sending of friend requests only to people who are already friends of your friends.
In the settings, you can also view the history of already published posts. An action log will be presented to your attention, in which you can see everything that you have already published, as well as all the posts in which other people have tagged you. You can go to the Activity Log by clicking the down arrow in the right corner of the top Facebook toolbar, selecting Settings & Privacy, and then clicking Activity Log.
In the Activity Log, click the View Timeline button and then select Publications. You can sort them by the date shown in the left navigation bar. Use the "..." icon in the upper right corner of each post to delete it. If you are using Facebook or Facebook Lite on your smartphone, you already have access to the action management feed, which allows you to submit multiple posts to your cart at the same time. Posts can be restored for 30 days after being sent to the trash before being completely deleted.
On the Activity Log page on your mobile phone, select Manage Activity. You can then filter your past entries by date and content, and use checkboxes to select multiple entries to delete or archive. If your account is years old, deleting all posts will still take a long time, but this is a good way to keep yourself and your personal data safe.
Also, disable tracking of your location on mobile to avoid targeted ads.
If you want to delete all posts, you can use handy third-party tools like Delete All Messages for Facebook and Social Book Post Manager for Chrome. Keep in mind that the effectiveness of such tools depends on factors such as the Facebook API and the speed of your internet connection. In any case, you should back up your data before deleting it and dispose of used tools when you're done.
If you plan to close or temporarily deactivate your profile, you can do so in the "About your Facebook" tab. There is also an option to download an archive of all your posts posted to Facebook. Be sure to do this before bulk deleting your posts.
Removing unwanted friends on Facebook is much easier than on Twitter: on your main profile page, click on the Friends tab to view a list of them. Then click on the "..." next to one of them to open a list of actions. After that, you should select the "Remove from friends" option. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any special tools to automate this process.
LinkedIn
Your LinkedIn resume (or any other online resume you may have) can tell cybercriminals a wealth of information about you: where you work and live, your contact details.
Remove any unnecessary email addresses or phone numbers. This is especially true of those that you mainly use for personal communication. You should also use your LinkedIn privacy settings wisely to keep your profile private. Select the special option to prevent people outside of this resource from seeing your name, delete all LinkedIn-linked social media accounts, and change your geographic location. You also need to set your privacy settings so that only you can see your date of birth.
You can also close or temporarily deactivate your account. Once you've activated a few basic security options, such as limiting who can view your email address, the key is to make sure that this information is available to the prospective employer.
LinkedIn is trying to infiltrate social media territory as well. If you've shared information about your resume on a social network and want to delete your posts, go to Me > Posts & Activity to view your entire activity stream. Unfortunately, you will have to delete posts one by one, as there is no option to bulk delete posts.
Instagram
Want to see the information you've provided to Instagram besides your photos?
Go to the application settings page and click on the "Security" button. Here you can view and download the information Instagram has collected about you. If you click on "Access Data", you can see all changes to your password, email address and phone number associated with this account, as well as additional information about how you use the application.
Instagran allows you to delete contacts that you may have linked to the social network using your phone number. This includes clearing names and phone numbers. Instagram and Facebook take over your contacts to send promotional offers to your friends, but they also gain knowledge of your social activity in this way.
This Instagram page shows if you have uploaded any of your contacts and allows you to delete them. Deleting the past will not stop the download of new contacts appearing on your phone. This setting can be turned on or off via the settings menu on iOS or Android.
You are probably using Instagram on your phone. By default, Instagram 's location data collection feature is disabled, but you've most likely enabled this feature unintentionally by adding your location to a post or story.
To turn it off, on Android go to the Settings section, then tap on Apps and find Instagram. You can turn these settings on or off, allowing Instagram to access your location all the time, either while using the app, or never.
If you have an iPhone, the process is the same. Click on the phone settings menu, go to the "Privacy" section and then to "Location services" and find Instagram.
Internet data leaks
Massive data breaches are a sad reality that many companies face. Visit Have I Been Pwned to check if your email addresses, passwords, or other personal information has been disclosed in a company breach.
First of all, make sure that you have already changed your password and have not used it before. Unfortunately, there is little you can do with your already stolen personal data. They can now be accessed by anyone.
If you are concerned about your name, phone number, or address being published on the Internet, you can turn on Google email alerts. He will inform you immediately.
Check the websites you visit and make sure they are not sharing too much personal information about you. If on the site you do not need to tell details about yourself, use a pseudonym and keep your privacy.
Based on materials from Wired.
The internet can be a dangerous place, as the culture of sharing information on social media often conflicts with security and privacy best practices. Most of us have at some point shared information about our birthday, photos of our loved ones, details of where we live and where we come from, and other content that might not be posted online at all.
In the worst case, the information you share online can be used for physical threats or extortion of large sums of money. Basic safety rules while surfing the Internet are almost the same everywhere. It doesn't depend at all on what online services you use.
Before we move on to specific actions regarding your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, you should understand the following: the better you protect yourself online, the less chances that attackers will misuse your personal information.
In general, you need to be sure that your friends or social media followers (with limited access to your posts) are people you trust completely. You should also search your post history for personal information, as it can be used to steal your data, gain access to your accounts, or track your physical address. If necessary, delete any personal posts or dialogs that confuse you. In addition, you can check the photos of friends you are tagged with and remove the tags if they are not needed.
There are several ways to find out your actual residential address. If you are an eBay seller and share links on your personal social media accounts, please note that your address is usually published along with your lots.
If there is a high probability of receiving threats from third parties, it is best to immediately restrict access, set new privacy settings and, if necessary, pause, delete or unpublish new posts in your accounts. In this case, you should take a screenshot of the threat message and report it to the law enforcement agencies.
A few more steps you can take is to turn off tracking your location, turn on two-factor authentication to protect your accounts, back up and delete old posts across all accounts where possible. You should also consider deleting social media accounts that you no longer use, especially those that contain data about you.
Now let's move on to the list of actions for each social network separately.
The security of the social network Twitter recently came under scrutiny when some hackers managed to get to the site's admin panel. This allowed the fraudster to gain access to the resource and publish records on behalf of the largest verified accounts in order to receive huge funds for them. None of the measures below can protect you if the social network itself is compromised. However, these tips will help protect you and your data from common and more common threats.
In your Twitter account itself, make sure that location tags are disabled for your tweets (Settings> Privacy & Security> Location Info). This option may be accidentally enabled, for example, if you've reinstalled the mobile app, so it's worth checking its status from time to time.
In the "Find you and contacts" section, turn off the display of your email addresses and phone numbers . This will prevent people looking for your account from using other personal information about you to do so. Follow this advice if you want to remain anonymous.
If you check the box next to the "Protect your Tweets" option on the home screen under "Privacy and Security", only people who are your followers will be able to see your entries in your account. Tweets will also not be publicly searchable. You will not be able to send private messages and tag on photos.
Twitter can get violent if you want to delete a lot of your tweets or unsubscribe from a bunch of people within a short period of time. Your account may even be blocked, so it's better to immediately create a new one for yourself and not bother about it. This is an official recommendation from the resource itself .
However, there are a number of useful tools like TweetDelete and Tweepi that will make it easier for you to unsubscribe from multiple users and delete a lot of tweets at the same time. Keep in mind that Twitter rules say it can take a significant amount of time to unsubscribe from hundreds of people or completely delete your post history.
Create a backup of your posts before you use these tools, downloading data from Twitter through your account settings. Remember to restrict access of such tools to your account as soon as you finish deleting and copying.
There are also dedicated tools for exporting your followers. The Twlets Chrome extension is a great option, but you'll have to register if you want to download information for over 1000 subscribers. Twitter-exporting Google Sheet by Martin Hoxsey is a free tool, but you also have to create your own.
Alternatively, you can simply create a new Twitter account and leave only the followers you want there.
You will find basic Facebook privacy options in the settings menu. On the Security and Login tab, you need to enable two-factor authentication, check which devices are already authorized in the system, and enable unauthorized login alerts if you suspect someone might be trying to hack into your account.
On the "Privacy" tab, you can decide who will see your posts (including those already published): only friends or yourself. You should also set the friends list to be visible only for yourself or for friends, disable the search for your account by email address and phone number. You can also restrict the sending of friend requests only to people who are already friends of your friends.
In the settings, you can also view the history of already published posts. An action log will be presented to your attention, in which you can see everything that you have already published, as well as all the posts in which other people have tagged you. You can go to the Activity Log by clicking the down arrow in the right corner of the top Facebook toolbar, selecting Settings & Privacy, and then clicking Activity Log.
In the Activity Log, click the View Timeline button and then select Publications. You can sort them by the date shown in the left navigation bar. Use the "..." icon in the upper right corner of each post to delete it. If you are using Facebook or Facebook Lite on your smartphone, you already have access to the action management feed, which allows you to submit multiple posts to your cart at the same time. Posts can be restored for 30 days after being sent to the trash before being completely deleted.
On the Activity Log page on your mobile phone, select Manage Activity. You can then filter your past entries by date and content, and use checkboxes to select multiple entries to delete or archive. If your account is years old, deleting all posts will still take a long time, but this is a good way to keep yourself and your personal data safe.
Also, disable tracking of your location on mobile to avoid targeted ads.
If you want to delete all posts, you can use handy third-party tools like Delete All Messages for Facebook and Social Book Post Manager for Chrome. Keep in mind that the effectiveness of such tools depends on factors such as the Facebook API and the speed of your internet connection. In any case, you should back up your data before deleting it and dispose of used tools when you're done.
If you plan to close or temporarily deactivate your profile, you can do so in the "About your Facebook" tab. There is also an option to download an archive of all your posts posted to Facebook. Be sure to do this before bulk deleting your posts.
Removing unwanted friends on Facebook is much easier than on Twitter: on your main profile page, click on the Friends tab to view a list of them. Then click on the "..." next to one of them to open a list of actions. After that, you should select the "Remove from friends" option. Unfortunately, we couldn't find any special tools to automate this process.
Your LinkedIn resume (or any other online resume you may have) can tell cybercriminals a wealth of information about you: where you work and live, your contact details.
Remove any unnecessary email addresses or phone numbers. This is especially true of those that you mainly use for personal communication. You should also use your LinkedIn privacy settings wisely to keep your profile private. Select the special option to prevent people outside of this resource from seeing your name, delete all LinkedIn-linked social media accounts, and change your geographic location. You also need to set your privacy settings so that only you can see your date of birth.
You can also close or temporarily deactivate your account. Once you've activated a few basic security options, such as limiting who can view your email address, the key is to make sure that this information is available to the prospective employer.
LinkedIn is trying to infiltrate social media territory as well. If you've shared information about your resume on a social network and want to delete your posts, go to Me > Posts & Activity to view your entire activity stream. Unfortunately, you will have to delete posts one by one, as there is no option to bulk delete posts.
Want to see the information you've provided to Instagram besides your photos?
Go to the application settings page and click on the "Security" button. Here you can view and download the information Instagram has collected about you. If you click on "Access Data", you can see all changes to your password, email address and phone number associated with this account, as well as additional information about how you use the application.
Instagran allows you to delete contacts that you may have linked to the social network using your phone number. This includes clearing names and phone numbers. Instagram and Facebook take over your contacts to send promotional offers to your friends, but they also gain knowledge of your social activity in this way.
This Instagram page shows if you have uploaded any of your contacts and allows you to delete them. Deleting the past will not stop the download of new contacts appearing on your phone. This setting can be turned on or off via the settings menu on iOS or Android.
You are probably using Instagram on your phone. By default, Instagram 's location data collection feature is disabled, but you've most likely enabled this feature unintentionally by adding your location to a post or story.
To turn it off, on Android go to the Settings section, then tap on Apps and find Instagram. You can turn these settings on or off, allowing Instagram to access your location all the time, either while using the app, or never.
If you have an iPhone, the process is the same. Click on the phone settings menu, go to the "Privacy" section and then to "Location services" and find Instagram.
Internet data leaks
Massive data breaches are a sad reality that many companies face. Visit Have I Been Pwned to check if your email addresses, passwords, or other personal information has been disclosed in a company breach.
First of all, make sure that you have already changed your password and have not used it before. Unfortunately, there is little you can do with your already stolen personal data. They can now be accessed by anyone.
If you are concerned about your name, phone number, or address being published on the Internet, you can turn on Google email alerts. He will inform you immediately.
Check the websites you visit and make sure they are not sharing too much personal information about you. If on the site you do not need to tell details about yourself, use a pseudonym and keep your privacy.
Based on materials from Wired.
