DUBAI: There will be more incidents of personal data, including private images and videos, finding its way online without the user’s permission despite a recent number of high profile incidents, security software experts say.
On Monday, as many as 200,000 images and videos of teenagers posted via mobile application Snapchat and stored on a third party website were published online. This follows the posting of nude celebrity photos in August.
Both cases appear to be part of targeted hacking campaign, however, highlight the vulnerability of personal data online.
Vincent Lavergne, Director, Field System Engineering for South Europe, Middle East and Africa, at F5, a company that provides data protection services to multinationals, said users need to be more conscious on how they’re protecting their data.
“There is nothing you can do if you leave the door of your apartment open,” he said in an interview on Monday at Gitex Technology Week stressing the need for strong passwords.
Mobile applications that are readily available to download can leave users vulnerable. Applications can “leak” personal data from a user’s phone including social media passwords and other application data including bank details.
Lavergne estimates the average mobile user has 20 applications on their device while the more serious users can have around 100.
The leaks are not always intentional and can be created through human error, said Florian Malecki, International Product Marketing Director, Network Security at Dell, in an interview on Monday.
“You will always get breaches somewhere because it [software development] was done by humans and they make mistakes,” he said.
Malecki believes leaks will still happen and admits that it can be hard to avoid targeted attacks, however, said other leaks can be stopped with “a bit of common sense” including using strong passwords and even making sure users do not lose their devices.
