The Hidden Risks of Employee Oversharing Online

Employee advocacy can amplify your brand, but oversharing on social platforms also arms cybercriminals. Public details help attackers craft convincing spearphishing and business email compromise (BEC) scams that target your people, processes, and payments.

Where employees overshare

• LinkedIn: A vast, public map of roles, teams, tech stacks, and vendor ties. Job posts may reveal tooling and processes attackers reuse as pretext.
• GitHub: Exposed secrets aside, commits can leak project names, CI/CD details, libraries, and corporate emails.
• Instagram and X: Travel plans, conference appearances, and office absences enable timing for scams and deepfakes.
• Corporate websites: Tech vendors, partners, org charts, and M&A news can all be weaponized as believable hooks.

How attackers weaponize overshared data

• Reconnaissance: Adversaries collect OSINT to understand who does what, which tools are used, and when targets are vulnerable.
• Delivery: They impersonate executives, vendors, or colleagues via email, text, or phone; urgency and relevance drive clicks and compliance.

Illustrative attack scenarios

• A new IT hire on LinkedIn receives a spoofed “urgent security update” from a known vendor; the link installs malware.
• A developer gets an email from a “teammate” about a shared GitHub project; the attached file is booby-trapped.
• An executive’s public travel and speaking posts enable a deepfake BEC video call, pushing finance to reroute payments.

Real-world cautionary tales

• CHOA BEC loss: Criminals likely mined public press releases about a new campus, identified the construction partner and key finance contacts, then impersonated the CFO to change payment details, costing Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta $3.6M.
• State-aligned actors: SEABORGIUM (Russia) and TA453 (Iran) use social media OSINT to build rapport before credential-harvesting spearphishing, per UK NCSC reporting.

How to lower the risk

• Educate continuously: Train everyone—from execs to new hires—on oversharing risks, phishing/BEC tells, and deepfake red flags.
• Rebalance advocacy: Encourage thought leadership without revealing roles, workflows, vendor details, or travel specifics.
• Be DM-wary: Discourage sharing via unsolicited messages, even from known contacts (accounts can be hijacked).
• Set clear policies: Define what’s off-limits; separate personal and professional accounts and enforce boundaries.
• Scrub public touchpoints: Review websites and official profiles to remove exploitable technical and organizational detail.
• Lock down accounts: Enforce MFA and strong, manager-stored passwords on all social and professional platforms.
• Monitor and test: Track public exposure, and run red team or phishing simulations to validate readiness.

The bottom line
AI accelerates profiling, OSINT collection, and persuasive message generation—and deepfakes make impersonation more believable. If it’s public, assume attackers will use it. Minimize the data trail, harden your controls, and keep people vigilant.

Source: WeLiveSecurity