Most people are of the mindset that, “I’m not doing anything wrong so I don’t have anything to hide.” Cyber criminals make a living from that particular mindset. Average social websites people frequent today have stockpiles of information about their users. This mountain of freely available data is at most just one friend request away.
It isn’t hard to find your mothers maiden name, your birthday, and your first pet’s name which are very common ways reset passwords. The more information we share the easier we make it for online scammers. So, take it serious when setting up online accounts and the security questions to reset passwords.
No one can eliminate the risk of a personal cyber attack completely but we can reduce the potential for attacks by not being more exposed than everyone else. Be mindful about posting potentially sensitive information, be aware of online posts that are publicly available (instead of friends/family only), and think about all the pictures of your first dog Snuggles on social media before making him the answer to reset your bank’s password. Because, you never know who is watching.