Security News > 2021 > February > 93% of workers overshare online, causing security risks

Tessian reveals just how much, and how often, people divulge about their lives online and how attackers take advantage of it.

With insights from both professionals and hackers, the report explores how cybercriminals use an abundant and seemingly cheap resource - the personal information people share on social media and in out-of-office alerts - to craft social engineering attacks.

Half share the names and pictures of their children, and 72% mention birthday celebrations, unknowingly giving away information that helps hackers launch a successful social engineering or account takeover attack.

Wire fraud attacks - whereby attackers try to steal money - had also increased by 15%. TMI in your OOO. 93% enable their out-of-office response when they're on vacation, but most aren't thinking about the fact that these emails also contain valuable information for malicious attacks.

According to Katie Paxton-Fear, Cybersecurity Lecturer at The Manchester Metropolitan University, "OOO messages - if detailed enough - can provide attackers with all the information they need to impersonate the person that's out of the office, without the attacker having to do any real work."

"Remember, hackers have nothing but time on their hands. We need to make securing data feel as normal as giving up data. We also need to help people understand how their information can be used against them, in phishing attacks, if we're going to stop hackers hacking humans."

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