Protect yourself and don’t regret using social media

Those who have ruined their reputations and damaged their careers after posting inappropriate material on social networks include politicians, movie and sports stars as well as teachers, police officers and even fast food restaurant employees.

The problem of exposing too much information could continue to plague social media users, a possibility supported in the August 2013 poll by Cint USA and Trend Micro. According to the poll, 24 percent of the respondents said they have posted something they later regretted or removed, and 36 percent said they have seen something they regard as inappropriate on Facebook, Twitter or Google+.

Trend Micro has expanded its social network privacy technology, which identifies privacy settings that may leave personal or inappropriate information publicly available or vulnerable to identity theft. Trend Micro also gives users control over which apps can access biographical data, and who can tag and see photos. These features are critical today, considering only 24 percent of Facebook users change their privacy settings each month or more often, according to the same survey of social media users.

The same poll showed that 27 percent of Twitter users and 30 percent of Google+ users have never checked their privacy settings and 34 percent of Twitter users and 39 percent of Google + users have never updated their privacy settings. Trend Micro’s robust personal privacy management tool now simplifies privacy settings on Twitter and Google+, and Facebook – for both Mac and PC. Facebook settings can also now be managed on-the-go via an Android app.

The social media privacy management tool is featured in today’s release of Trend Micro’s Titanium 2014 family of consumer security products.

Titanium Security 2014 solutions provide anti-virus and Web-threat protection that identifies and blocks dangerous links in websites, social networks, emails and instant messaging. It also detects spam emails containing phishing scams that can trick users into revealing private personal information.

To help fight identity theft, Trend Micro’s password management feature in Titanium Security 2014 includes a secure browser to conduct safe online commerce that is specifically designed to support secure online banking. Based on users from the same poll, respondents have an average of 12 accounts requiring passwords, but are using only eight passwords among those dozen accounts. An identify thief can do more damage to a victim that uses the same password in multiple accounts.