Shariyaz's Information Security Blog: November 2013

3. Intro to Online Security

Nowadays online information security plays a vital role in our day to day life. Especially the social media have gone main-stream among the teenagers. Starting from sharing personal information with your friends and connecting with new people and social networking facilities have been trending.

First let’s see what the cyber space is and information security?

Cyber space can be called as a network of networks where we can store and share information and other resources. Nowadays teenagers are addicted to surf the internet which is a part of cyber space for various activities such as educational use, social networking, downloading iTunes or even to play an online game. The data which children enter in these online activities are considered as information and depending on the type of data which is visible children are vulnerable to exploitation and harm by criminal such as computer sex offenders.

While posting the personal data online users are vulnerable for threats, therefore let’s consider the rising threats which are coupled with these trends and the article will highlight how to mitigate these attacks.

How do criminals gather information and use the information to their advantage?

Cyber Stalking using sources such as social media criminals target children and gather information about their personal information such as age , name , school , pictures and videos, social gathering places and upcoming events , interests , music , hobbies. The data will be used to qualify targets and then gradually seduce the targets using attention, affection and even gifts.

4. Social Networking

First of all let’s dig into the social network. People post sensitive data such as pictures, connect with strangers, chatting and messaging strangers that you have never met before. Anyone with a malicious intention can deceive children and tempt them to revile sensitive personal data, which will be used for scams and even blackmailing children. So let’s see how we can mitigate this. First of all control the visibility of your sensitive data. Do not revel sensitive data in the public domain, use the data visibility option in social networks to protect your private data and stop listing it in search engines for public access. Also it is very important to be concern whom do the child add on social networks as a friend. Best practices do not add strangers. Most of the social network attacks are based on deception which is also called as Social Engineering. This can be used to perform identity thrift.

For an instance if the criminal was able to social engineer the child to double click a file which was sent by him, it will automatically install a key logger in Childs personal computer. The criminal will be able to monitor every key stoke typed by the child , all the password the child enter and list of all the web site the child visit. This will be serious threat to the child because looking at the key log information the attacker can use it to blackmail the child, use for cyber bulling, seduce the child or use the Childs user account such as social media account to spread the key logger among the Childs friend list.

Also some criminals use the social media to get in touch with children. Then gradually seduce the targets using attention, affection and even gifts while spending considerable amount of time and money in the process. They will spend time to listen and empathize to problems of the children to build trust. Then gradually introduce sexual content to their conversation by exploring the curiosity of the children for sexuality and sexually explicit materials. Then use the conversations and the materials sent by the child such as nude picture for blackmail or even cyber bulling.

The power and danger of social media and cyber bulling, as sexually explicit or other humiliating pictures or videos spread like wildfire with a click of a mouse.

One in six US children aged 12 to 17 have received a sexually suggestive nude or nearly nude photo or video of someone they know, a recent study by the Pew Research Center found.

And the Crimes against Children Research Center estimated that police investigated nearly 3,500 cases of youth-produced sexual images in 2008 and 2009.^[2]