Spotting Possible Scams on TikTok

I want to take a moment this week to draw attention to certain trends currently on TikTok. If you’ve seen the videos titled “show your child/pet then show what you named them after”, you know where I’m going with this. Viral trends like this might seems fun. But taking a step back, one could easily see how countless creators are actually divulging sensitive information. 

Many people often use a combination of their children or pets names in passwords online. Let’s say a creator posts a picture of their dog and then pictures of a bow and arrow or something similar. The commenters start guessing things like “archer, arrow, bow”. The creator might respond “Yes! But we spell it Beau!”  Now, any determined hacker/scammer can use this piece of information and dig deeper to find things like birthdays and other significant dates. Most of us have been guilty of using password combinations of this type before, am I right?

So please be aware before you jump on trends you see on major social media platforms. 

Written By: Alice.in.londini.land