What Hackers Can Learn About You From Your Social-Media Profiles

Hackers can use powerful AI and software tools to scan social-media accounts at incredible speeds looking for details about your life.

Armed with all the publicly available intel on social media, a cybercriminal can cobble together a profile of you—and use it in countless ways to break into your company’s network.

They might craft an email tailored to your interests (“Hello fellow dog lover!”) that gets you to click on a dubious link, inadvertently giving them access to the network, or insider details about service providers like your health-insurance company, so they can launch a ransomware attack. Or they might pretend to be you to trap somebody else at your business (“Hey, it’s Cindy’s birthday next week, click on this link to accept the invite to her party.”). And so on