{"id":65636,"date":"2023-04-12T11:09:16","date_gmt":"2023-04-12T03:09:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/version-2.com.sg\/?p=65575"},"modified":"2024-09-13T16:31:22","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T08:31:22","slug":"how-social-networks-put-your-biometric-data-at-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/version-2.com\/en\/2023\/04\/how-social-networks-put-your-biometric-data-at-risk\/","title":{"rendered":"How social networks put your biometric data at risk"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Social networks have become integral to our lives, enabling us to share photos, videos, and audio to connect with others, build our social presence, and even generate income. However, by sharing this content, we may unintentionally expose our faces, irises, fingerprints, voices, and other biometric patterns to hackers, who can exploit them for malicious purposes.<\/p>\n

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In this blog post, together with Andrius Januta<\/b><\/a>, Cybersecurity Technical Manager at Nord Security, we’ll explore how content shared online can be used to steal our biometrics and discuss ways to protect ourselves from this threat. Let’s dive in.<\/p>\n

Biometric data: What is it?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Biometric data, or biometrics for short, are body measurements and calculations related to an individual’s biological, physical, and behavioral characteristics<\/b>. This can range from DNA, blood type, signature, and walking gait to the more commonly known fingerprints, face, iris, and voice patterns.<\/p>\n

Each person’s biometrics are unique, so they offer a superior alternative to passwords<\/b> for ease of use and enhanced privacy and security. As a result, biometric identification has become increasingly widespread, not only in high-security facilities but also in people’s everyday lives.<\/p>\n

Today, over 80% of smartphones offer biometric capabilities<\/b><\/a> for their users, enabling device unlocking, user authentication for purchases, and confirmation of sensitive actions within various applications.<\/p>\n

Social networks: An endless source of biometrics<\/b><\/h2>\n

Our digital lives are dominated by biometric features that can be exposed on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and others. So by posting seemingly innocent-looking eye makeup, unboxing or live-painting videos, profile photos, stories featuring our daily life, and voicemails, we\u2019re also sharing our unique identifiers with the world. <\/b><\/p>\n

Rapidly advancing technology and media platforms supporting high-resolution image and video can inadvertently expose our face, iris, fingerprints, and voice <\/b>patterns that can be cloned and used by threat actors.<\/p>\n

How can biometric recognition systems be fooled?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Face, iris, fingerprints, and voice patterns are the four most common biometrics that can easily be harvested from social networks.<\/p>\n

Andrius Januta, Cybersecurity Technical Manager at Nord Security, says that while, in general, biometric data offers greater security than passwords, several cases also demonstrate its inherent vulnerabilities.<\/p>\n

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