ITNE2002 Network Security: A Report on Instagram Privacy Issues

This report examines the critical privacy issues prevalent on Instagram, a platform heavily reliant on the exchange of personal information such as photos and videos. The report identifies key risks, including data leakage, identity theft, fake requests from spam profiles, social sharing issues, hacking of user profiles, fake applications, malicious links, and targeted phishing attacks. To counter these threats, the report proposes several mitigation strategies, emphasizing the use of strong passwords, two-factor authentication, effective privacy settings, and caution when interacting with unknown profiles. The conclusion underscores the importance of addressing these vulnerabilities to safeguard user data and prevent malicious activities, highlighting that while Instagram's popularity is undeniable, its security requires constant vigilance and proactive measures. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and past papers for students.

Instagram Privacy
Name of the Student
Name of the University

Introduction
The main focus of information security
and network security is the respective
balanced protection of CIA or
confidentiality, integrity as well as
availability of data (Von Solms and Van
Niekerk 2013). Instagram, being a
popular web site often faces some of
the major and significant privacy issues
that are required to be eradicated on
time eventually.

Importance of Privacy in Instagram
Privacy is extremely important in
Instagram since it majorly deals with
personal information like photos,
videos and other confidential details
of the users (Crossler et al. 2013).
When such security is threatened, it
is quite evident that the
authenticated user might lose his
personal data and would face
significant problems.

Privacy Issues in
Instagram
The main privacy issues or risks in
Instagram are as follows:
 Data Leakage or Identity Theft
 Fake Requests from Spam Profile
 Social Sharing Issue (Von Solms and
Van Niekerk 2013)
 Hacking of Users’ Profiles
 Fake Applications and Malicious Links
 Targeted Phishing Attacks.

Mitigation Strategies for
Instagram
The identified risks and threats could be mitigated
by undertaking few mitigation strategies, which are
as follows:
 Use of Strong Passwords
 Utilization of Two Factor Authentication
 Effective setting of Privacy (Crossler et al. 2013).
 Non Acceptance from Unknown Profiles

Conclusion
Therefore, it is concluded that
Instagram although, is extremely
popular in the users, often faces some
of the most significant privacy and
security issues. These issues are quite
vulnerable for the security of users’
personal information and could be used
for wrong intentions. However, such
issues could be eradicated with proper
mitigation strategies.

References
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.
Von Solms, R. and Van Niekerk, J., 2013.
From information security to cyber
security. computers & security, 38,
pp.97-102.