Course Overview

Social Media Oversharing Risks explores how everyday posts and photos can expose personal and organisational information to criminals. It explains how social media details are gathered and misused.

This course examines how criminals analyse social media activity to plan targeted cyber and physical attacks. It shows how information from platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram can be combined to build detailed profiles of individuals and organisations.

Social media oversharing risks are illustrated through examples including work updates, conference posts, holiday announcements, and background details in photos.

The content highlights specific risks linked to professional networking, organisational change, and public discussion of projects or systems.
Personal sharing is also examined, including how posts about routines, travel, and family can affect physical security.

Guidance is provided on privacy settings, reviewing connections, and thinking carefully about what is visible before posting. Examples are set in realistic personal and workplace contexts to reflect common social media use.

Course Objectives

By the end of the course, learners will be able to:

• Explain how criminals exploit social media information
• Identify posts that create security risks
• Recognise signs that information is being overshared
• Apply practical steps to protect online privacy