Cybersecurity

A professional hacker reveals the top security mistake people make online — and it's something you probably do every day

But there's another critical security mistake people often make online: oversharing on social media. That's according to Etay Maor, an executive security adviser at IBM Security. It's not just sensitive personal data like phone numbers, credit card numbers, and addresses that you should avoid sharing online, but also seemingly harmless information like mother's maiden name or your pet's name.

Such details are often used as answers to two-step verification questions or passwords, and they can easily be found just by scanning someone's Facebook page if that person frequently shares photos of their pets.

"Today, people are writing about everything," said Maor, who studies cyber criminal tactics on the dark web to help clients better protect themselves by understanding how hackers work. "They're putting everything online, and then they get mad at you if you don't read it."