This article is brought to you by Bitdefender.
If you're reading this, we're guessing you're reasonably tech-savvy. You know there can be major issues with security and you want to improve your handling of it.
Only, you have these things called "friends". And one of them has just posted a link on Facebook, Twitter or another social network. They've tagged you and said "You are in this video" and you’re tempted to click. Something gives you pause though, and it’s not just the weird way that their comment is worded.
Chances are you're aware of the "you've been tagged" scam. Unsuspecting folks click the link and are taken through to a phishing site which instantly asks for money or it’s going to demolish the contents of their hard drives. It's a close relation of the email purporting to be from technical support, your bank or some mystery overseas prince, but which is in fact from no such place.
If a friend starts sharing this sort of thing, the first thing to do is to contact them off social media; give them a text if you can. If not, try email, or another social media avenue, if you're friends in more than one place. It might be that they don't even know they've been hacked and will need to know.
If you don't know them offline and can't contact them, report the post. After that it may be necessary to block them. If your friend has been hacked and someone has taken over their account, the hacker will be able to see all of your posts and everything you've sent to your friend by direct message – so it might be that they’re privy to sensitive information like your phone number, your address and what your pets are called. Old addresses and pet names are, of course, common answers to security questions.
On that note, you and your social media mates should resist sharing and playing along with things like the Tory MP name generator meme, which asks you to publicly state a relative's name, the name of the street you grew up on and a favourite teacher's name - again, things which are often asked of people for verification purposes.
The friend request from someone you’ve never met or heard of, with whom you have no mutual friends and sometimes they even have no friends in their list at all. If it’s not an automated account, you can be sure that whoever is behind it probably doesn’t resemble whoever that gym toned body in the profile pic belongs to.
So it's safe to link to someone with loads of common connections? This can be true but consider LinkedIn for a moment. Someone you've never heard of tries to connect and they have many mutual connections within your business. Sounds good? Check with your colleagues. The response "Oh, I connected with her because she knew Frank", who then confesses he only connected because she appeared to know Alison in accounts, and eventually you realise she knows nobody but is now targeting the contacts of senior management.
Social media is an excellent thing at its best, don't get us wrong. It's worth remembering the "social" side, though, which is all about communicating with people you know. Check any incoming connections; many will be genuine, but by acting as gatekeeper and alerting friends when someone's a fake you'll be helping everyone stay more secure.