Greg's Corner

What Kim Kardashian can teach you about social media security

One of the bigger entertainment stories last week was the armed robbery of reality TV presence Kim Kardashian. She was said to have been robbed of $10 million in jewelry while in her Paris hotel room. Some reports have alleged that the perpetrators may have used her ubiquitous presence on social media to plan the heist. The truth is that you don’t have to be famous to have your social media betray you like that.

Apps like Twitter and Instagram are constantly trying to get you to post your location. If you’re out in public and away from home this can present a number of problems for your real world security. Mashable, has a great blog post about how to disable your location in several apps. Another safety issue is with check in apps that announce where you may be such as a restaurant or concert. Instead of checking in as soon as you get there you may want to wait until after you leave before checking in.

The biggest security flaw that has come back to bite social media mavens is being on vacation. It’s become common place to announce your vacation plans on social media before documenting the entire trip. This has the potential to let one of your followers know that you may not be home for a while which has led to burglaries in the past.

Instead of documenting every moment of your life on social media as it happens, maybe put some time aside at the end of the day to do more of a ‘day in review’ type of update. Your safety and security is not worth a handful of likes and emojis.