The dangers and threats of 'posturing' in social networks

[OyaYansa]

To the great majority of Internet users we like to share (eg, envy) of the paradisiacal places in which we are spending a few days on vacation. But, stop! Take a moment to think about the information you are showing on your social networks. You can think (naively) that you are showing it only to your contacts on the network, but it is very likely that the other Internet users can see it as well. And more if you have an open profile on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

Upload photos, tag our friends, who tag us, indicate our geolocation at the same time and our most immediate plans are the most frequent actions we do in our social profiles. Innocent acts, fruit of the emotion of the moment that we are living that make us ignore the dangers of social networks and the abuse of the posture.

Holidays are a time to rest, to disconnect and to relax from our routine, but not for that we have to lower our guard in the online world. The typical and innocent photo lying on the beach or breathing pure air after having climbed a mountain, accompanied by the real location at that very moment, can turn against us as it is a very valuable track for lovers of other people, putting in Risk our security.

Gossip is the national sport par excellence, and these people are experts in tracking our profile to get all kinds of information. And more if we have our accounts linked. One of the main risks of showing our location is that uploading an image to Instagram and sharing it on Twitter is giving access to both the users of the photography network and the microblogging network where we are at the moment. That is, unknown people know where we are.

If we practice this practice frequently and add our position of coordinates in our daily routine, it will be easy for anyone to know what our movements are and where we live. And if we share that we are on vacation, the thieves have a clear signal: our house is empty and have free way to enter without problems.

The same happens with the posturing of showing the new acquisitions. It is common, for example, to buy a car and upload photos to Instagram of our new vehicle, with details of the features it has or our specific GPS coordinates. Information that can be used for malicious purposes and that can make our joy disappear. The same happens if we buy a new TV and we show it to the rest of Internet users.

The same safety precautions we take as adults should be taught to our children, especially if they are minors, since they are not yet aware of the dangers of social networks or posture, being able to be exposed to all types of computer crime and Cybersecurity. The best in these cases is to explain the risks of sharing personal information online and remember the courage to think several times before publishing something.