Technology has brought about a paradigm shift in the world of ICT. However, it has brought about various effects in our society like cybercrime. Cybercrime is a crime where a person uses a computer to access private and confidential information. Therefore, this paper will discuss on various effects of cybercrime on social media.
First, cybercrime has brought about security costs. Cybercriminals have now shifted their attention to social medial platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and so on. To ensure that the users are safe, social media companies and owners have resorted to investing in how to protect their users. This definitely costs them a lot of money thereby increasing the cost of ensuring security. For example, the infamous activities by Cambridge Analytica made Facebook very unpopular and threatened to even ground one of the biggest social media platforms. After this, Facebook had to invest a huge amount of dollars to ensure that its users are safe from prying eyes.
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Besides, big and small companies, organizations, and institutions rely on social media to pass information, connect with shareholders, connect with customers, advertise their products and services, and so on. This makes them targets of cybercrime. To ensure that cybercriminals are kept at bay, these firms have to hire security experts, buy expensive software, and monitor their social media accounts 24/7-375 days. This means that they are spending a lot of money on security and this could increase production costs.
In addition, cybercrime has resulted in identity theft. Nowadays users of social media are required to sign up for accounts to be able to access various social media platforms. Individuals are made to use personal details like official names, date of birth, contacts, and so on. Therefore, this personalized information in case it falls on the wrong hand through an account being hacked it can be used against the owners of the information. For example, recently there has been a public outcry where personal accounts on social media have been hacked. Furthermore, Cybercriminals have devised ways to lure innocent social media users into joining their platforms unknowingly thereby getting access to their confidential information. As can be seen, information that individuals feed on their social platforms can be accessed by a third party through hacking resulting in identity theft.
Furthermore, individuals or organizations can lose money to cybercriminals through social media. First, cybercriminals may lure social media users to join certain lucrative financial sites through advertisement pop-ups thereby getting their personal information that they can use to hack their bank accounts. Second, cybercriminals may crone certain financial sites and invite clients to open accounts with them and deposit certain amounts of money whereby after collecting a substantial amount they terminate all accounts. As has been seen, users of social media can lose money to hackers if they are not cautious.
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