ITNE2002 Assignment 2: Comprehensive Analysis of Instagram Privacy

This report provides a comprehensive overview of Instagram privacy, a critical aspect of online social networking. It begins by emphasizing the importance of maintaining privacy on the platform, given its handling of personal information, photos, and videos. The report then delves into the various ri...Read More

Running head: INSTAGRAM PRIVACY
Instagram Privacy
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author’s Note:

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Discussion..................................................................................................................................2
Importance of Instagram Privacy...........................................................................................2
Risks or Issues Related to Privacy in Instagram....................................................................3
Mitigation Strategies for Privacy Issues in Instagram...........................................................5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................6
References..................................................................................................................................7

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Introduction
Information security can be stated as the core practice to prevent any kind of
unauthorized or unauthenticated access, modification, disruption, disclosure, inspection,
destruction and even recording of relevant information (Von Solms and Van Niekerk 2013).
These data and information might undertake any of the significant form of being physical or
electronic. This type of information security is only possible when the specific network of the
user is being protected from unauthenticated usability. It is the core activity that is being
designed for protection of network integrity. This type of activity is vital for social
networking sites. Instagram is one of the most popular and significant social networking sites
in today’s world that helps users to connect with each other (Crossler et al. 2013). The
following report outlines a brief discussion on the privacy and security issues in Instagram as
well as procedure of maintaining this type of security.
Discussion
Importance of Instagram Privacy
Instagram is a photo as well as video sharing social networking service that is owned
by Facebook. This particular service was created in the year of 2010 and was mainly
followed by a feature restricted website interface in the year of 2012 (Peltier 2013).
Instagram is responsible for allowing users to upload the photos and videos to that service
that could be edited with the help of several filters and could even be organized with location
information and tags. The posts of the account of a user could be shared either publicly or
even with the previously approved followers. These users could even browse the contents of
other users’ content by locations and tags and view the trending content. They can like the
photos and can also follow other users for adding the content to feed.

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It is extremely important and significant to maintain security and privacy in Instagram
as it deals with personal information, photos and videos of users. This security is a trade off
that majorly applies to everything related to Instagram for restriction of content from
appearing on the profile of users, hence preventing people from accessing of photos or any
other content (Peltier 2016). This particular action in Instagram is solely responsible for
allowing people to search the respective users and thus security is highly maintained without
any kind of complexity. If the user does not follow the basic security rules in their social
networking sites, it is evident that they might lose their authenticity and authorization to
personal data.
Risks or Issues Related to Privacy in Instagram
In spite of being extremely popular and significant and having some of the core
features for security, there are some of the major and the most significant risks or issues
related to privacy within this particular social networking site of Instagram (Liang et al.
2015). The major risks and issues related to privacy in Instagram are as follows:
i) Data Leakage or Identity Theft: The first and the foremost risk or issue that is
extremely common in Instagram social networking site is data leakage and identity theft.
Every year more than 2 million people suffer from these types of circumstances of data
leakage and identity theft that eventually led to the undesirable fraudulent situations.
Moreover, even the respective financial companies, who are responsible for handling the
confidential information of their users are undertaking few steps for the purpose of
conserving these and hence keeping it safe from the various hackers (Furini and Tamanini
2015). These organizations are then securing the customers from getting affected by such
fraudulent situations. Since Instagram is mainly into sharing of personal information, this
particular threat is extremely common here.

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ii) Fake Requests from Spam Profile: The second important and noteworthy threat
related to Instagram privacy is gaining fake requests from various spam profiles. In this
particular social networking site, there are few users, who are solely responsible for creating
fake accounts and with the help of these, they eventually try to make spams for the
authenticated users. Such fake account users even lead towards subsequent virus attack from
entering into the devices (Edwards and Harbina 2013). For the purpose of avoiding these
types of serious risks in Instagram, the respective user should remain alert for utilization this
web site.
iii) Social Sharing Issue: In social media web site like Instagram, a significant feature
is present for the users that allows them to share their personal data like photos or videos and
even locations. It eventually proves to be extremely useful for the cyber criminals in
receiving information regarding the user (Madden et al. 2013). The location sharing is being
shown on the Internet within the form of descriptive addresses and this type of advanced
feature could even lead to the strangers finding or contacting the user.
iv) Hacking of Users’ Profiles: The next significant and vital risk or issue in
Instagram is the hacking of users’ profiles. It is quite common for the social media scam lists
and this type of hacking only undertakes less time for doing this activity. The cracking of
passwords of the respective users in this Instagram social networking site is considered as one
of the most common and popular method of hacking the profile of user (Marwick and Boyd
2014). These hackers involve mainly those people, who are quite well in computing
technically.
v) Fake Applications and Malicious Links: Another important and significant
privacy risk and security in Instagram is fake applications and malicious links. There are
several fake applications as well as links that attain all types of personal data like passwords,

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email ids, mobile numbers, photos and many more (Seaman and Tinti-Kane 2013). With the
core help of these personal information, it is extremely common to get into fraudulent
situations and might lead to unfortunate disturbances. These links might have been eradicated
from the respective web network, however there are several people, who are eventually trying
for getting into the profile by creation of more new things and carrying out of frauds.
vi) Targeted Phishing Attacks: This is yet another noteworthy and significant risk or
issue related to privacy and security in Instagram. The targeted phishing attacks are being
carried out for the core purpose of stealing confidential information (Tucker 2014). This
specific threat is one of the major examples in social engineering tactics, in which the
attackers eventually exploit the anxiety and fear for getting users to part with the information
and thus spam as well as malware is being spread effectively and efficiently.
Mitigation Strategies for Privacy Issues in Instagram
The above mentioned risks and issues related to privacy in Instagram are quite
vulnerable and risks, however these could be mitigated or avoided by involving few
important and significant strategies, which are as follows:
i) Use of Strong Passwords: The first and the most basic, effective and efficient
mitigation strategy for eradication of these types of privacy issues and risks in Instagram web
site is the utilization of stronger passwords (Bazarova and Choi 2014). This stronger
passwords is one of the major keys for avoiding the social media account from getting hacked
over the primary level. For the purpose of making the passwords much strong and difficult in
cracking, the user should make use of the alphanumeric code pattern and also include few
symbols.
ii) Utilization of Two Factor Authentication: The TFA or two factor authentication is
the next effective strategy for security. This is also termed as multi factor authentication. TFA

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is only a two step verification in which the respective user requires to provide an additional
data with username and password (Von Solms and Van Niekerk 2013). It is extremely
effective for eradication of issues and problems for security.
iii) Effective Setting of Privacy: In Instagram, there is an option to maintain privacy
for each and every photo, video, mail ID, username and gender. Moreover, the entire profile
could even be protected and any user, who is not followed by or is not following the
respective user cannot view or check the personal information (Furini and Tamanini 2015).
These options are being involved in the privacy settings of Instagram.
iv) Non Acceptance from Unknown Profiles: The respective users should not accept
any request from the unknown profiles and hence they could remain away from the scams
and frauds.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that network security
effectively and eventually manages or controls subsequent access to the respective network.
This type of security mainly targets the variety of vulnerabilities and then stops them from
spreading or entering within the network. The network security amalgamates several defence
layers at the edge and within the network. The layer of network security deploys the controls
and policies and the authenticated users obtains significant access to various network
resources, however malicious activities are blocked from carrying out of threats and
exploitations. Amongst the popular issues in privacy and security, access control is one of the
major and the most significant issue is access control. This kind of issue is mainly faced in
social networking sites. The above report has clearly outlined the detailed description of
Instagram privacy with various risks and their mitigation strategies.

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References
Bazarova, N.N. and Choi, Y.H., 2014. Self-disclosure in social media: Extending the
functional approach to disclosure motivations and characteristics on social network
sites. Journal of Communication, 64(4), pp.635-657.
Crossler, R.E., Johnston, A.C., Lowry, P.B., Hu, Q., Warkentin, M. and Baskerville, R.,
2013. Future directions for behavioral information security research. computers &
security, 32, pp.90-101.
Edwards, L. and Harbina, E., 2013. Protecting post-mortem privacy: Reconsidering the
privacy interests of the deceased in a digital world. Cardozo Arts & Ent. LJ, 32, p.83.
Furini, M. and Tamanini, V., 2015. Location privacy and public metadata in social media
platforms: attitudes, behaviors and opinions. Multimedia Tools and Applications, 74(21),
pp.9795-9825.
Liang, K., Liu, J.K., Lu, R. and Wong, D.S., 2015. Privacy concerns for photo sharing in
online social networks. IEEE Internet Computing, 19(2), pp.58-63.
Madden, M., Lenhart, A., Cortesi, S., Gasser, U., Duggan, M., Smith, A. and Beaton, M.,
2013. Teens, social media, and privacy. Pew Research Center, 21, pp.2-86.
Marwick, A.E. and Boyd, D., 2014. Networked privacy: How teenagers negotiate context in
social media. New media & society, 16(7), pp.1051-1067.
Peltier, T.R., 2013. Information security fundamentals. CRC Press.
Peltier, T.R., 2016. Information Security Policies, Procedures, and Standards: guidelines for
effective information security management. Auerbach Publications.

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Seaman, J. and Tinti-Kane, H., 2013. Social media for teaching and learning. UK: Pearson
Learning Systems.
Tucker, C.E., 2014. Social networks, personalized advertising, and privacy controls. Journal
of Marketing Research, 51(5), pp.546-562.
Von Solms, R. and Van Niekerk, J., 2013. From information security to cyber
security. computers & security, 38, pp.97-102.