Alert! Be careful when posting pics from work online, you may be inviting trouble

Posting selfies and photographs from our daily lives online is one the most common things we all do in our daily lives. It could be cooking food, doing fitness activities, going out with friends and family and having a good time with colleagues. However, photographs from your office bay or work place with your device in the background should always be shared online with caution. 

While not critically unsafe, such careless behaviour can give hackers a lot of information which they can exploit. This may jeopardise you personally or can even be used against your company. This could even cost a person their job. Ethical hacker Timo Sablowski recently explained in a LinkedIn post what information needs to be hidden to ensure one’s safety.

“Hackers love it when you post pictures of your work environment!,” he said.

“We are all proud of what we are doing and proud of the great companies we are working in. But by taking pictures of your work environment for LinkedIn or your career blog you are unintentionally disclosing information about your technical setup,” Timo said.

“This is not a critical vulnerability by itself but can be used by adversaries to prepare further attacks or to create a well-designed pretext for social engineering,” he added.

He then enlisted the kind of vital information that hackers can gain access to by just photos of LinkedIn posts and career blogs of people. There include:

• Operating systems
• Software they use
• Their appointments
• Email, text
• Sticky notes on screens
• Usernames
• Departments
• Remote connection names
• Infrastructure
• Badges

The ethical hacker advised people to be careful and also showed what information you should blur when posting pics from work online. Have a look:

Things that should be blurred before you post pics from office or workspace online. | Photo: Tim Sablowski/ LinkedIn

READ | Do THESE safety checks before staying in hotel: Here's how to detect hidden cameras in your room