David's New Blog

1. Which 3 social media sites are the most used?

The most popular social media site is Facebook with 3.05 billion monthly active users. The second most used is YouTube with 2.70 billion Monthly active users. The third most used is WhatsApp with 2.40 billion monthly active users.  ExplodingTopics.com

2. Give a summary about how the sites work.

Facebook: you can Post pictures, videos, Reels (Shortform videos that are about 90 seconds long). You can comment, React, get notified about new posts, and join groups with people or you can ‘like’ pages (basically follow that page)

YouTube: A site that you can use to post videos, Shorts (Shortform videos that are 60 seconds long and are pretty similar to Reels), or some posts (not seen very often). You can also comment, and you can react, but reactions are limited to likes (and dislikes). You can also subscribe to different Youtubers (creators).

WhatsApp: An App and site that can be used like a messaging system. you can make group chats, do calls, post a status (Sort of like shortform videos, but more personal depending on what you post). You can find Channels (sort of like a “follow” for other types of social media), create communities (probably just bigger group chats).

3. What are “demographics” and how are they useful for social media?

Demographics are statistics based on characteristics of their users (Age, Gender, Location, education, etc. (reading this concerns me that they know more about what we like than maybe some good friends)) and each platform will be different than others. They are useful for businesses to know if they are targeting the right audience, and what type of media is most popular. Source

4. Explain any demographics that stand out among the three social media sites you listed above. (More popular with a specific age group, are majority of users male or female, married or single, employees or self-employed, etc.)

An interesting demographic about:

Facebook: Most of the users are from India. Excerpt

Youtube: Users are mostly in between the age of 15-30 Link

Whatsapp: Popular with people in between 18-34

5. How much time do people spend on each social media?

A little under 2 and a half minutes according to Statista.com

6. Which of the 3 platforms picked are growing the fastest?

Whatsapp because it grew 7% since 2023, compared to facebook which grew 5%  Link

7. What is the main way people access these sites?

With all 3 platforms, Mobile devices are used the most. Facebook:Link Whatsapp:Source Youtube: Refrence

Denial of Service/Distributed Denial of Service: https://www.a10networks.com/blog/5-most-famous-ddos-attacks/

https://blog.google/threat-analysis-group/how-were-tackling-evolving-online-threats/

https://www.fortinet.com/resources/cyberglossary/ddos-attack

First off, to know what or how a thing would happen, you should know what DDos is. DDos is short for Denial of service/Distributed Denial of Service. It is a form of cybercrime that a person can use to cause Internet trafficking and flooding of a server. Motivations can vary. From proving a point to companies competing against each other.

Google has had some DDos attacks. But were going to be more focused towards the one in 2023. This attack had about 398 million requests per second(rps), basically 7 and a half times bigger. They were targeting major parts of google like Google Cloud and Google Services. They worked with industry partners to understand the attacks and protect the internet and its people. If they can’t understand or prevent these attacks, many bad things can happen to organizations not involved. They learned that the attack was using a method called “Rapid Reset” and they updated their ddos defenses and find more ways to make the issue less severe. Eventually they share info about it and things start getting better.  Google’s Blog

So in super short, Google was attacked in 2023, with many organizations falling with them. Many organizations work with Google to try and fix the issue, and they sort of do by updating their defenses causing it to be less severe. Eventually, they share info and things are sort of back to normal. They don’t mention anyone or group organizing the attack, so there is no info on if a group was held accountable

So to prevent this from happening, if you have a http workload, you could be at risk of attacks. You could check to verify if the servers are not vulnerable. Another way is to apply Vendor Patches for CVE-2023-44487 to limit the attack. If its your own server, you should immediately apply a patch when available.

• Some of our potential threats are:
• • Loss or theft of equipment or data: IT equipment stolen or lost and used to make money or access systems.
  • Social engineering: A way for criminals to trick people into giving info or installing some Malware onto our devices.
  • Malware: a type of software that can steal our info or ruin a system so it can’t work. Viruses and Ransomware are common examples.
  • Ransomware: a type of malware that criminals could use to lock our data, forcing us to pay them a ransom.
  • Supply Chain Attacks: When criminals target their vendors and suppliers to target our organizations system.

https://405d.hhs.gov/Documents/405d-infographic-10practices.pdf

https://fortifydata.com/blog/what-are-the-5-main-threats-to-cybersecurity/

The Top 5 Cybersecurity Threats and How to Defend Against Them (isaca.org)

• Identify at least 5 digital processes, systems, and/or functions your company has in place. Importantly, address how could those be exploited or manipulated in order to gain access to valuable corporate or customer data?
  • Our Company has A bank account that sends money to the workers: Can be exploited by some workers to as the bank to get account info out of them.
  • Has an online store: They could change somethings like where the money is sent to, or they could put in ransomware making the company not able to access it.
  • Has a supplier: If they are not a secure supplier, they could be hacked, this could lead into getting into our system when we refill our stock.
  • Has employees: it’s possible some might not know how to stay safe from some things and might install malware accidentally, or might think a bank is calling when in actuality, they might be calling a criminal trying to destroy or damage the organization
  • Has 3 separate buildings: could potentially break in and steal some equipment. Or could potentially lose equipment.

• As the chief technology executive, make 5 recommendations that your company should adopt to be more safe, secure, and reliable. Again, consider hardware, software, networks, and human policies and procedures. (e.g., appropriate use policy on corporate computers; firewall; SSL/web encryption; backup/retention
  • Have meeting every month to learn what social engineering is and how to prevent malware or something from ruining things
  • Make sure to check if suppliers are secure
  • Add a firewall to prevent things like malware interfering with our website.
  • Give access to a few trustworthy employees as a backup to get into the website if there are issues with ransomware. Make sure doors are locked before leaving so no devices are taken. Make sure to not have any important info when your out and about.
  • Make sure to sign off all devices before leaving or closing.