3 simple ways to protect yourselves from malicious video tags on Facebook

MANILA -- If you recently got tagged in a malicious post on Facebook by someone you don't know, don't click on it.

Yeo Siang Tiong, general manager for Southeast Asia at Kaspersky, believes that the latest incident affecting Facebook users is a form of "social engineering," which he described as "a manipulation technique" used by cyber attackers.

It means to "trick someone or to lure unsuspecting users to expose data, spread malware infection, or give them network or computer access."

"Scams based on social engineering are built around how people think and act. Attackers may use emotional manipulation to convince you to take an irrational or risky action that you otherwise wouldn't," he said in a statement sent to ABS-CBN News on Thursday.

"Fear, excitement, curiosity, anger, guilt, and sadness are emotions normally used to convince an unaware, clueless person," he added.

Yeo went on to give three simple ways on how social media users can protect themselves from malicious video tags, as well as similar social engineering tactics.

He said the first step, while cliché, is "always think before clicking."

Social media users should also "set a strong password," and "take advantage of the security and privacy features of your favorite platform."

"You can control who can tag you or who can see your posts. Because Facebook regularly makes changes to their settings, it's worth your attention and time to check your own saved settings from time to time to update it for maximum privacy," he said.

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