Volodymyr Styran: Everything you write in Facebook remains there

All information the users posted in the popular social network Facebook both on their own ‘walls’ and in private messages remains in the network and it is impossible to remove it completely, said Chief operations officer of BEREZHA Security company Volodymyr Styran during the 3rd Youth Kyiv Security Forum organized by Arseniy Yatsenyuk Open Ukraine Foundation. 

“Everything posted in Facebook remains there forever. You can delete a post, but it will still exist somewhere in the backup copies. There is no certain place where it is located, everything is scattered between various systems. This ‘cloud technology’ makes it impossible to delete the information completely,” – he said answering the question of a participant of the Forum. 

The expert stressed, “Is information is already somewhere in the internet, people you do not trust can receive this information, such danger always exists”. “Anybody can have ‘friends’ in Facebook or communicate via e-mail, so everybody is under the threat,” – he said. 

However, V.Styran pointed out that “everything is not so pessimistic”: “For it is not as easy to get the information. Search capabilities are quite limited in Facebook. Perhaps, the situation is not as dramatic as it may seem”.

The expert said that users should also be cautious when providing their personal data in the Internet, no matter whether it is about state institutions, insurance companies, shopping or even taxi services. All these data, he underscored, can become target for hackers who prey on the personal data of users.

The data deposited on so-called ‘cloud storage services’ are attackable as well. He also said that professionals hack “not organization or something of that kind, but certain people” using “social engineering techniques”. 

V.Styran advised with a view to improving the protection of one’s personal data to change one’s passwords at least periodically. He also drew attention to the fact that that anti-virus systems are not perfect and do not provide comprehensive protection.

For his part, IT solutions expert Igor Malchenyuk stressed that the threats “do not necessarily exist in the form of viruses, one can fight with anti-virus software”.  So users have to learn the basics of Internet safety and to increase their level of awareness on this issue.

He gave a simple advice to the users of social networks: “Do not post anything that you do not want to become known. Do not post what you would be afraid to write on your T-shirt. Do not do that.”

For your information:

The Youth Kyiv Security Forum is a new initiative of the Arseniy Yatsenyuk Open Ukraine Foundation, which aims at creation of a discussion platform for young experts from different countries on important issues of international relations and foreign policy. The main goal of the Forum is to empower the new generation by increasing their capacity to participate in policy analyses and policy development processes.

The Arseniy Yatsenyuk Open Ukraine Foundation is a non-governmental organization aimed at facilitating the development of public diplomacy and international cooperation with Ukraine.