Russians told what publications in social networks attract scammers

Users of social networks should hide phone numbers, do not specify the place of work and be careful to publish photos of children. Such information can help fraudsters collect information about a person and his relatives, Anastasia Kisko, head of the Jet CSIRT proactive monitoring service for external digital threats, told Hi-Tech Mail.

In particular, the expert advised to make the phone number available only to friends from the list of contacts, as well as not to indicate the place of work – your own and relatives. Careful should be taken to photos of children: school uniforms or clothes with the symbols of the circle, attackers can determine where the child spends time and according to what schedule.

Another source of information for scammers is geolocation in photos. It can set the address of the house, the place of work and the usual routes of a person. Therefore, Kisko recommended not to publish pictures with a location mark in real time, and upload photos from a cafe and from rest after leaving there.

“Do not link the location to real-time photos. This helps scammers understand your home address, job location, or regular itineraries. Publish photos with rest or from a cafe after leaving this place, the expert warned.

In addition to personal data and geolocation, photos, videos and audio recordings can be dangerous, which can recognize a person’s face and voice. Fraudsters can use such materials to create deepfakes, such as a fake video message to relatives asking them to transfer money. In this regard, Kisko advised to limit the audience of stories and live broadcasts and not to post videos that clearly show the facial expressions and manner of communication.

The expert also called for regular “digital cleaning”: the removal of old publications with a home address, as well as photos of the car, which show the state registration number.

Last week, the Russian Interior Ministry warned about the danger of transferring personal information to ChatGPT and other AI services. Information about work, income, health and personal life allows you to make a detailed profile of a person.

This data can be used without his knowledge, so users were advised not to disclose confidential information to neural networks and check privacy settings.