Big data is the availability of data and metadata concerning virtually every object in existence in the world at the moment. When the information relates mere objects, the privacy may not be of much concern. However, with more information captured relating to individuals and organizations, the stakes-placed on the sensitivity of the information is quite high. As the amount of data captured and stored by both individuals and organizations continues to increase, the propensity of compromising on the safety of that information also escalates. Safeguarding of personal information is one of the most critical contemporary issues in the 21st century (Radcliffe and Lam 2018). Companies strive to ensure that their data is kept as private as possible. The investment in data protection and privacy will be the greatest form of investment in the next decade or so.
Various approaches including the use of ambiguous non-identifiable information to protect the insecurities of personal information go a long way in preventing threats to access to this information. Most users, both individuals, and businesses underestimate the risks of sharing personal information online (Huong Tran, Childerhouse and Deakins 2016, p. 1114). However, whether the access is legal or illegal, recent reports indicate that the amount of information stored in a database is directly proportional to the rates of online and offline crimes relating to personal information. This paper, therefore, reviews the types of crimes that are of the greatest threat to personal information, yet are underrated. In particular, this paper focuses on hacking and social networking threats with the applications specifically pertaining to the individual as well as institutional data sharing (Lusthaus and Varese 2017).
Social Networking
Social networking has grown exponentially over the years to become a contemporary phenomenon in the modern world today, especially among the youth. Companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft have various techniques for accessing information about people. In a highly technical world where everyone desires comfort and automated processes, these companies design products that provide a semblance of some assistance in a person’s day-to-day activity performance. In reality, while those products are vital utilities in the individuals’ lives, they pose a great security risk to every user. There are risks specific to individuals, businesses or both, with 81% of crimes initiated over the internet take place in social networking sites (Grassegger and Krogerus 2017, p.30). One of the more recent and ongoing cases of improper use of personal information involved the Cambridge Analytica and Facebook where there are claims that the two institutions played a role in the last election in the US. The current tribulations facing Facebook, therefore, implies that people are realizing the magnitude of the exposure of their private data to third-party entities. With Facebook intending to implement Artificial Intelligence soon globally, the risks of the information shared will likely escalate to unmanageable heights.
Imperatively, social media sites including professional networking sites have inbuilt capabilities to remember passwords of every user and go to the extent of keeping a history of the changes made to the account information (Huong Tran, Childerhouse and Deakins 2016, p. 1115). As a person provides truthful information regarding their location, marital status as well as places of employment, this information becomes vulnerable to interference by unauthorized persons. Sometimes, while only the authorized people access such information, it is impossible to control who uses the information afterward. Apparently, third-party entities have continued the tradition of buying private information for marketing purposes and this only jeopardizes the privacy of individuals when their rights to confidentiality are infringed. As such, the information user may be an unauthorized person even though access was legal. Possible scenarios may include the sharing of a person's photo by an authorized user to people who are not authorized and subsequently, the illegal user downloading it and using to create products of their own, such as memes. This illegal access in itself is plagiarism, which is a crime that may take place either online or offline (Lusthaus and Varese 2017).
Secondly, social networking also has criminal threats in the form of cyberbullying. While interacting on Twitter or Facebook, it is possible for groups of people of a certain orientation to attack others whose information leaks (Demirkan and Cheng 2008, p.781). Cyberbullying may only take place online, yet is one of the most grueling forms of crimes on victims given that it drains those victims as they look for solutions. Cyberbullies prey on the gullibility of their targets, and not necessarily the amount of information about the target that a criminal has, inasmuch as in most cases, these two factors directly correlate. For instance, a criminal may establish a person's gullibility based on the amount of information about them that they have (Huong Tran, Childerhouse and Deakins 2016, p. 1117).
Finally, the most common cases taking place in the form of identity theft, fraud or phishing schemes, cyberbullying is a huge concern. Criminals access the information of unsuspecting people and utilize it either online to tarnish the image of an individual or business. Alternatively, the criminals use the information obtained online to trick a business’ clients into making a certain decision, more commonly, a financial one (Lusthaus and Varese 2017). With increasing the business information available pertaining to application forms and formats for addressing people internally within an organization, it is increasingly difficult to distinguish fake letters from the authentic ones. Criminals use both persuasive and threatening messages depending on the response of their victims, and in the end, the filing of privacy intrusion claims may not be possible (Lusthaus and Varese 2017).
Hacking
Hacking is one of the top crimes motivated by the availability of personal data that is not well protected. With hackers, the specialty is to source for locations which have personal information stored. Hackers may actually not have personal information available to them without working towards it (Demirkan and Cheng 2008, p.777). As such, the primary targets for hackers are established business or prominent personalities. The question that is often in the mind of every hacker relates to the possible benefits from their endeavors. There is a wide range of approaches used by hackers and the factors they consider prior to involving their targets (Huong Tran, Childerhouse and Deakins 2016, p. 1119).
Most significantly, hacking is unpredictable yet not entirely unavoidable given that there are people whose work is primarily to invent new ways of hacking. The first activity in every hacker’s mind almost always concerns target marking or identification of a vulnerable entity or individual (Huong Tran, Childerhouse and Deakins 2016, p. 1114). In target identification, the most likely organizations for hacking include government and financial institutions, which place high stakes on personal information. The more personal the information gets, the higher the stakes in the information sought by hackers hence the greater the likelihood to be targeted for hacking.
In several instances as is the norm, there is the ability of web-browsers to store passwords on multiple sites. Essentially, the implication of this tool in virtually all modern browsers is that the people in the back-end have access to the user accounts created within a given device (Laube and Böhme 2017, p.77). While this feature helps in eliminating the issue of forgetting passwords, especially in an era where web accounts are the order of the day, there is a great degree of security risk. In case of a successful hacking attempt, it would be possible to affect a chain of user information which would, in the end, paralyze the functioning of not only individual tasks but also multinational businesses. In instances where the hacking is successful, the person may spread the information either online or through printouts which would then render the person not only insecure but also vulnerable to future disruptions or intrusions (Demirkan and Cheng 2008, p.778).
Also, relating to hacking is the unauthorized access to mobile web-applications. In an era where banking is possible without having to go to the bank, mobile web-applications are even more relevant (Demirkan and Cheng 2008, p.780). Mobile web applications just like all applications that require internet access use personal identification numbers (PINs) or fingerprint identities which have their storage that is accessible to the development team. When the applications involve mobile banking or financial loaning systems, there is need to ensure that the personal information is safe. However, the greater the number of users, the more likely, an application is to be a target of hacking and manipulation of unauthorized users. In the case of these applications, the authorized access persons often place a high value on the sensitivity of the information and would therefore not share it with unauthorized persons (Laube and Böhme 2017, p.77).
Finally, there is the hacking that is possible within cloud computing contexts. For instance, hospitals, among other businesses or even individuals who back-up their personal information have credentials for the access to that information. Given that cloud storages have servers for storing institutional data, the servers may not be entirely immune to attack by hackers or even system crashes. Hackers may download information regarding a patient's health condition, especially for prominent persons. The hackers may then spread the information either offline or online leading to a development of perceptions on a given patient (Lusthaus and Varese 2017).
Conclusion
Most users, both individuals, and businesses underestimate the risks of sharing personal information online. The risk of this information sharing varies directly with the value of person or institution, whereas some may have future consequences inasmuch as they are not risky at the time of sharing. The sharing of information to certain authorized people coupled with unauthorized access to information has damaging effects and leads to increased rates of crime. These crimes range from hacking to social networking crimes. Social networking crimes touch on criminal activities whose starting points are social media sites, although they take place both online and offline (Lusthaus and Varese 2017). These crimes include cyber-bullying, fraud or plagiarism of a person's information such as copyrighted photos or videos. Hacking crime types vary in terms of the platforms concerned. They may take place on web applications, mobile applications or even on cloud servers. Regardless of the hacking type, the first activity is to identify the targets. While social networking crimes capitalize on an individual or organization's naivety and gullibility, hackers look at their vulnerability or the vulnerability of their system.
References
Demirkan, H. and Cheng, H.K., 2008. The risk and information sharing of application services supply chain. European Journal of Operational Research, 187(3), pp.765-784.
Grassegger, H. and Krogerus, M., 2017. The data that turned the world upside down. Vice Magazine, January, 30.
Huong Tran, T.T., Childerhouse, P. and Deakins, E., 2016. Supply chain information sharing: challenges and risk mitigation strategies. Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, 27(8), pp.1102-1126.
Laube, S. and Böhme, R., 2017. Strategic Aspects of Cyber Risk Information Sharing. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 50(5), p.77.
Lusthaus, J. and Varese, F., 2017. Offline and local: The hidden face of cybercrime. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice.
Radcliffe, D. and Lam, A., 2018. Social Media in the Middle East: The Story of 2017.
