The Delta variant might pose the biggest threat yet to vaccinated people (Business Insider)

 

Scientists have long worried about a coronavirus variant that's more dangerous than the original virus in three key ways: It would be more transmissible, result in more serious illness, and evade protection from existing vaccines. "The nightmare here is a variant that checks off all three boxes," said Bob Wachter, the chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

No prior variant, he said, has checked more than one or two. But the Delta variant, first identified in India in February, has come closest to checking all three. "The data today says that this variant gets a full checked box for more infectious, probably gets a checked box for more serious, and at least gets a partial checked box for immune evasion. And that's scary," Wachter said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention labeled Delta a "variant of concern" on Tuesday. "Delta is a super spreader variant, the worst version of the virus we've seen," Eric Topol, the director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, tweeted on Tuesday.

While Delta undoubtedly poses the biggest threat to unvaccinated people, some experts worry that it may result in more breakthrough infections — cases of COVID-19 diagnosed at least two weeks after someone is fully vaccinated. "That's the concern — that you're more likely to get COVID from the same exposure than you would have been before," Wachter said. "And you're more likely, if you have COVID, to have a more serious case."

Other experts are also afraid the strain may further evolve into something more dangerous, since Delta's high transmissibility enables it to spread easily among unvaccinated people, and therefore to keep replicating and mutating.

"The worst-case scenario is if Delta mutates into something completely different, a completely different animal, and then our current vaccines are even less effective or ineffective," said Vivek Cherian, an internal-medicine physician in Baltimore.

Delta is the most transmissible strain yet

Research from Public Health England suggests that the Delta variant is associated with a 60% increased risk of household transmission compared to Alpha — the variant discovered in the UK. Alpha is already around 50% more transmissible than the original strain, the CDC said. In other words, "Alpha is to the original as Delta is to Alpha," Wachter said. 

Researchers in Scotland, meanwhile, found that getting infected with Delta doubles the risk of hospital admission relative to Alpha. But for the most part, Delta hasn't drastically challenged vaccines. Public Health England analyses have found that two doses of Pfizer's vaccine are still 96% effective at preventing hospitalizations — and 88% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 — from Delta cases. Two doses of AstraZeneca's vaccine, meanwhile, are around 92% effective at preventing hospitalizations and 60% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 from Delta.

But that efficacy does not come after just one dose: A single shot of either Pfizer's or AstraZeneca's vaccines were just 33% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19 from Delta. "The fact that three weeks after your first dose you're only 30% protected — versus, in the original, you were 80% — says that this thing has figured out how to at least partly evade the immune system," Wachter said. It's also possible, he added, that vaccine protection could "wear off more quickly."

Does Delta make breakthrough infections more likely?

Although variants are responsible for the majority of breakthrough infections, it's very rare to get COVID-19 after being fully vaccinated: A May CDC report found that just 0.01% of vaccinated Americans got sick.

Even when it comes to Delta, Cherian said, "my guess is you don't really have to worry about breakthrough infections." But Wachter worries that Delta could turn a mild breakthrough case into a more serious one. "It increases the risk that we're going to see more breakthrough infections and maybe more serious breakthrough infections than I would have worried about a few weeks ago," he said.
The biggest risk may be for elderly or immunocompromised people, he added. "The 80-year-old who's been fully vaccinated — their level of immunity is not the same as a 30-year-old," Wachter said.
Delta could threaten our return to normal life 

At the moment, Delta accounts for 10% of US coronavirus infections, but scientists expect it to become the dominant strain within weeks. Wachter said he would "start acting much more carefully" if Delta came to represent one out of every three or five COVID-19 cases in a given region. 

"If I had gotten comfortable with being inside without a mask in a place where I wasn't sure that everybody's vaccinated, I would now be uncomfortable," he added. Cherian, on the other hand, doesn't think Delta warrants that level of caution yet — though most experts still worry that a more concerning variant could arise out of the fast-mutating strain. "It is a perfectly human instinct to feel now we have weathered this terrible 18 months, and now we are out of it and over it," Wachter said. "I hope that's true, and it may turn out to be true. But the chances of that not being true, and that we're going to have more in our future to deal with, have gone up considerably in the last few weeks because of Delta."

https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-coronavirus-variant-strongest-threat-vaccinated-people-2021-6

Reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban

 

“[In 1970], I was asked by the United States of America to fight for freedom in Viet Nam. I was given an assault rifle that was designed to fire 20 bullets every 3 seconds (400 bullets per minute with a large enough clip) to kill as many of the enemy as possible in a shortest period of time.

“Let’s be real, this type of destruction has no place in our peacetime civilized society. Please be honest, ask yourself if you have the right to carry rocket propelled grenades or a m60 machine gun? Of course not. Someone please tell me why you should be allowed to own an assault rifle. Please don’t embarrass yourself by saying that it’s your right to bear arms or you need it for hunting.

“Listen, I’m not professing to take our guns away, I am just saying that we need to have some sanity to the argument. In today’s world we will always be confronted with emotionally disturbed people, terrorists, and criminals. Let’s just agree that we need to make it difficult to arm them with weapons designed to achieve mass slaughter of large number of human beings.

“The bottom line is that there is no reason why weapons of mass destruction of any sort - chemical weapons, biological weapons, RPG's, improvised explosive devices (IED's), missiles, dirty bombs, nuclear devices, or assault weapons -- should be easily accessible.

“For 10 years there was a ban on the production, ownership and use of assault weapons in the United States until Congress and the Bush Administration allowed it to lapse when it sunset and came up for reauthorization in 2004. Can our elected officials be counted on to reinstate the assault weapons ban? Or does the blood stain of man’s inhumanity to man live within all of us?”

—Tom Lehmann

 

In Sweden, only responsible people can have guns

 

“…Here’s how the Swedish system works: Only responsible people are trusted with firearms. Sweden licenses guns in much the same way we license cars and drivers. You can have up to six guns but can get more with special permission.

“To apply for a firearm permit you must first take a year-long hunter training program and pass a written and shooting test. You can also apply for a gun permit if you’ve been a member of an established shooting club for six months.

“In addition to undergoing training, Sweden’s gun owners must store their firearms safely. Guns must be locked away in a vault, not stored beneath your car seat or in the nightstand where your kids can find them.

“Responsibility in Sweden goes further yet: Convicted of a felony? No guns for you. Beat your wife? No guns. Under a restraining order? No guns. Drive drunk? No guns.

“(The gun law does not spell out specific actions that cause a citizen to be ‘unfit’ to have a gun permit. It does say that the police must have a ‘reasonable cause’ to suspend a permit, and these kinds of things might signal that a gun owner is ‘unfit’).

“Even so, being responsible is not such a tough job. Sweden denies permits to only about 1,000 people a year (out of 600,000 permit holders), and they can appeal their rejection to the courts.

“And despite these restrictions, Sweden has a strong hunting culture. The heavily forested country is about the size of California but with one-fourth the people. Its moose population per acre is the world’s largest, and moose hunting is front-page news. The king himself hunts moose, and small towns shut down for the season opener much like Wisconsin towns do for the state's deer season.

“Sweden has nearly 300,000 hunters, which means it has a readily armed population should it need defense. And make no mistake: Guns are part of Sweden’s culture, history, and national defense — even though it has enjoyed more than 200 years of peace.

“Many of my Swedish colleagues served in the military and are proficient with firearms. They can practice at shooting ranges all over Stockholm. When hiking in a city park, it’s common to hear the measured shots of target practice nearby.

“And yet gun violence is low in Sweden. The country ranks 10th out of 178 countries in the world for per capita gun ownership but in 2014 had only 21 homicides by firearms. In contrast, the US is first in per capita ownership and had more than 8,000 (gun) homicides in 2014. Controlling for population, US firearms homicides are 700 percent higher than Sweden’s…” (Tom Heberlein, Vox, Aug. 2016).

Commentary

It is said that laws and their restrictions will never apply to deranged criminals. Moreover, the fact that there are an estimated 300 million firearms already in circulation in America make it impossible for most gun control laws to have any effect on reducing violent crimes. Because most gun control laws also prohibit people’s self-reliance and self-defense, they can also cost the lives of more innocent victims. Most unfortunately, America is a violent country throughout its history and seems beyond hope.
 
Nevertheless, why can't we have background checks for anyone purchasing a weapon, especially at gun shows and private sales? Why can't we have the banning of high-capacity magazines and modifications on semi-automatic weapons? Why can't we have the banning of semi-automatic and fully automatic assault rifles? Why can't we ban anyone from owning a weapon on no-fly or watch lists? Why can't we have legislation that will mandate prohibitions on concealed weapons and possession of firearms by the mentally-ill and people convicted of violent crimes?

Let’s pursue a policy goal that eliminates so-called “corporate personhood” (Citizens United): this corrupt, unlimited campaign spending from moneymaking, mendacious powers like the NRA and the Koch Brothers, et. al. that coerces legislators and the media to ingratiate them.   

Instead of more political party accusations and useless prayers for the victims, legislators should also focus upon and address the causes of violent crimes: domestic white nationalism, racism, bigotry (power, hatred, revenge, anger, notoriety), religious fundamentalism, economic injustice, poverty, unemployment, gang activity, drug trafficking, inefficient law enforcement in high-crime areas, suicide, mental illness, social media's perpetuation of fear, demagoguery and xenophobia. 

-Glen Brown
 
 

The mysterious origin of the northern lights has been proven

“The aurora borealis, or northern lights, could easily be described as Earth's greatest light show. A phenomenon that's exclusive to the higher latitudes has had scientists in awe and wonder for centuries. The mystery surrounding what causes the northern lights has been speculated but never proven, until now. The great aurora mystery finally solved

“A group of physicists from the University of Iowa have finally proven that the ‘most brilliant auroras are produced by powerful electromagnetic waves during geomagnetic storms,’ according to a newly released study. James Schroeder, from Wheaton College, was the lead author of the study.

“The study shows that these phenomena, also known as Alfven waves, accelerate electrons toward Earth, causing the particles to produce the light show we know as the northern lights. ‘Measurements revealed this small population of electrons undergoes 'resonant acceleration' by the Alfven wave's electric field, similar to a surfer catching a wave and being continually accelerated as the surfer moves along with the wave,’ said Greg Howes, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa and co-author of the study. This idea of electrons ‘surfing’ on the electric field is a theory first introduced in 1946 by a Russian physicist, Lev Landau, that was named Landau damping. His theory has now been proven. 

Recreating the northern lights

“Scientists have understood for decades how the aurora most likely is created, but they have now been able to simulate it, for the first time, in a lab at the Large Plasma Device (LPD) in UCLA's Basic Plasma Science Facility. Scientists used a 20-meter-long chamber to recreate Earth's magnetic field using the powerful magnetic field coils on UCLA's LPD. Inside the chamber, scientists generated a plasma similar to what exists in space near the Earth. 

“‘Using a specially designed antenna, we launched Alfven waves down the machine, much like shaking a garden hose up and down quickly, and watching the wave travel along the hose,’ said Howes. As they began to experience the electrons ‘surfing’ along the wave, they used another specialized instrument to measure how those electrons were gaining energy from the wave.

“Although the experiment didn't recreate the colorful shimmer we see in the sky, ‘our measurements in the laboratory clearly agreed with predictions from computer simulations and mathematical calculations, proving that electrons surfing on Alfven waves can accelerate the electrons (up to speeds of 45 million mph) that cause the aurora,’ said Howes.

“‘These experiments let us make the key measurements that show that the space measurements and theory do, indeed, explain a major way in which the aurora are created,’ said Craig Kletzing, the study co-author.

“Space scientists around the country were ecstatic to hear the news. ‘I was tremendously excited! It is a very rare thing to see a laboratory experiment that validates a theory or model concerning the space environment,’ said Patrick Koehn, a scientist in the Heliophysics Division of NASA. ‘Space is simply too big to easily simulate in the lab.’

“Koehn said he believes being able to understand the acceleration mechanism for the aurora-causing electrons will be helpful in many studies in the future. ‘It does help us understand space weather better! The electron acceleration mechanism verified by this project is at work elsewhere in the solar system, so it will find many applications in space physics. It will be of use in space weather forecasting as well, something that NASA is very interested in,’ Koehn said in an email to CNN.

A long way to go

“Now that the theory of how the illuminating aurora is created has been proven, there's still a long way to go in forecasting how strong each storm will be. ‘Predicting how strong a particular geomagnetic storm will be, based on observations of the Sun and measurements from spacecraft between the Earth and the Sun, remains an unsolved challenge,’ said Howes in an email. ‘We have established the link of electrons surfing on Alfven waves about 10,000 miles above the Earth's surface, and now we must learn how to predict the strength of those Alfven waves using spacecraft observations,’ he added” (CNN).

 

“Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin—don’t fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards!” -trump

 

Ahead of Biden’s first meeting with Putin, Trump's playing his greatest hits. Former President Donald Trump is apparently missing his old job right now, as he watches his successor hanging out with a bunch of world leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ahead of President Joe Biden’s first meeting as president with Putin in Geneva later this week, Trump fired off a statement fondly recalling that time in 2018 when he met with Putin in Helsinki and rejected U.S. intelligence’s assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Trump, in favor of Putin’s denial that his government interfered. 

“My people came to me—Dan Coats came to me and some others—they said they think it’s Russia. I have President Putin; he just said it’s not Russia. I will say this: I don’t see any reason why it would be,” Trump said in a joint press conference with Putin during the summit three years ago, before going off on a conspiratorial tangent about 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s emails and the Democratic National Committee. “So I have great confidence in my intelligence people, but I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today,” Trump added. 

Trump’s performance in Helsinki was roundly denounced by the U.S. foreign policy establishment, including officials in his own party. The late Arizona Sen. John McCain, a Russia hawk who frequently clashed with Trump, called it “one of the most disgraceful performances by an American president in memory.” Trump, on the other hand, still believes the meeting was “great and productive,” he said Thursday. 

“Despite the belated Fake News portrayal of the meeting, the United States won much, including the respect of President Putin and Russia,” Trump said. “Because of the phony Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax, made-up and paid for by the Democrats and Crooked Hillary Clinton, the United States was put at a disadvantage—a disadvantage that was nevertheless overcome by me.”

Trump then reiterated that to this day, he still believes Putin’s denial over the word of a slew of American law enforcement and intelligence officials. “As to who do I trust, they asked, Russia or our “Intelligence” from the Obama era, meaning people like [former FBI director James] Comey, [former FBI deputy director Andrew] McCabe, the two lovers [a reference to former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok], [former CIA director John] Brennan, [former director of national intelligence James] Clapper, and numerous other sleeze bags (sic), or Russia, the answer, after all that has been found out and written, should be obvious,” Trump said. “Our government has rarely had such lowlifes as these working for it.”

Trump then predictably took a final shot at his former presidential rival, playing off the “Sleepy Joe” label he gave Biden during the campaign. “Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin—don’t fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards!” Trump said. 

Next week’s meeting in Geneva will not be the first time Biden has encountered Putin. The two met multiple times while Biden was vice president, including at the Kremlin in 2011, when—as Biden told the New Yorker in 2014—he told Putin that he didn’t think the longtime Russian leader had a soul. 

“I had an interpreter, and when he was showing me his office I said, ‘It’s amazing what capitalism will do, won’t it? A magnificent office!’ And he laughed,” Biden recalled in 2014. “As I turned, I was this close to him. I said, ‘Mr. Prime Minister, I’m looking into your eyes, and I don’t think you have a soul’” […].

Trump Is Very Jealous Biden Is Meeting with Putin (Vice)

Pope Francis Expresses Sorrow But No Apology For Indigenous School Deaths In Canada

 

Pope Francis expressed sorrow Sunday [June 6] for the gruesome discovery of a mass grave in Canada containing the remains of hundreds of Indigenous children. The remains were found at a boarding school for Indigenous Canadians, operated by Catholic clergy.

"I join the Canadian Bishops and the whole Catholic Church in Canada in expressing my closeness to the Canadian people, who have been traumatized by this shocking news," Francis told an audience in St. Peter's Square, according to a translation of prepared remarks. "This sad discovery further heightens awareness of the pain and sufferings of the past."

 

The comments come about a week after the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation in British Columbia announced that the remains of 215 children had been found on the grounds of the former boarding school. Indigenous Canadians had known for years that some children never returned from the schools, but this is the first time a major burial site has been discovered.

 

Francis urged political and religious authorities in Canada to continue to work together "to shed light on this sad event and humbly commit themselves to a path of healing and reconciliation." It's important, he said, to "turn away from the colonial model and also from the ideological colonizations of the present, and walk side by side in dialogue, mutual respect and recognition of the rights and cultural values of all the daughters and sons of Canada."

"We commend to the Lord the souls of all the children who have died in the Canadian residential schools, and we pray for the grief-stricken Indigenous families and communities of Canada," Francis added.

Although Francis expressed sorrow on Sunday, he never explicitly apologized for the church's role in the forced reeducation of more than 150,000 children, who were taken from their homes over a period of 150 years during the 19th and 20th centuries. Many of the children were forced to become Christians, were forbidden from speaking their native languages, and were often abused. In 2015 a national commission condemned the treatment as "cultural genocide."

 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday he was "deeply disappointed" that the Catholic Church had not offered a formal apology for its role in the church-run boarding schools. Trudeau said that on a 2017 trip to the Vatican, he had directly asked Francis "to move forward on apologizing, on asking for forgiveness, on restitution." But, Trudeau said, "we're still seeing resistance from the church."

 

Chief Rosanne Casimir of the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation has also called for a public apology from the church. Francis' comments were "a little bit better than nothing, but only marginally," said Veldon Coburn, a professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Ottawa. "They're sort of skirting the words, 'I'm sorry,' like that is painful for them, and really, getting that out of them feels like it's pulling teeth."

"Saying things like 'we're going to walk hand in hand,' well, that was sort of what the popes and the Council of Canadian Bishops said several years ago," Coburn told NPR. He suggested the Catholic Church follow the lead of the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada, both of which formally apologized decades ago for their involvement in the boarding schools for Indigenous people. "Just say sorry and move on," Coburn said. "Because now it seems really painful to watch, and cringe-inducing, and awkward."

 

Although the pope hasn't offered an apology on behalf of the church, other Catholic clergy have. On Sunday, Cardinal Thomas Collins of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto apologized during mass. "I think we as Christians need to be particularly regretful and sorry that we took part in that particular system," he said, according to the Toronto Sun. "It was a governmental program that essentially took little children away from their families.

"I don't know what the religious groups or the Catholic groups were thinking," Collins continued. "They probably wanted to advance their mission. But to participate in anything that took kids away from their families? All we stand for are families. I'm just so sorry that it happened."

NPR

 

What Hackers Can Learn about You from Your Social-Media Profile (WSJ)

 

That post you ‘liked’ on Facebook? Your alma mater on LinkedIn? They are all clues that can make you—and your company—vulnerable.

That cute photo of your fluffy Lagotto Romagnolo on Instagram. The TikTok video of your team finally back together in the office. An alma mater highlighted on your LinkedIn page.

Armed with all that publicly available intel, a cybercriminal can cobble together a profile of you—and use it in countless ways to break into your company’s network.

They might craft an email tailored to your interests (“Hello fellow dog lover!”) that gets you to click on a dubious link, inadvertently giving them access to the network, or insider details about service providers like your health-insurance company, so they can launch a ransomware attack. Or they might pretend to be you to trap somebody else at your business (“Hey, it’s Cindy’s birthday next week, click on this link to accept the invite to her party.”). And so on.

“About 60% of the information I need to craft a really good spear phish is found on Instagram alone,” says Rachel Tobac, chief executive officer of SocialProof Security, a hacker-led vulnerability-assessment and training firm. By scouring somebody’s social-media accounts, she says, “I can usually find everything I need within the first 30 minutes or so.”

It isn’t just things that you post, either. “Every ‘like’ you make on Facebook and heart you tap on Instagram can be aggregated together to paint a fairly clear picture of who you are and what you are into,” says Carrie Gardner, a cybersecurity engineer and leader of the Insider Risk Team at Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute.

The potential for attack is even greater given data breaches like the recent hacks at Facebook and LinkedIn, which exposed hundreds of millions of users’ personally identifiable information. Then there’s the fact that so much of this criminal snooping is done automatically: Hackers can use powerful AI and software tools to scan social-media accounts at incredible speeds looking for details.

“We can actually automate all that reconnaissance using AI, which criminals are increasingly doing at scale in hopes of finding a lucrative victim,” says Aaron Barr, chief technology officer of PiiQ Media, a social-media threat-intelligence and risk-analytics company.

We asked security experts what social-media users can do in terms of what they post online to keep from compromising their companies’ networks. Here is what they had to say.

Think twice about what you post. Then think again

This is a classic piece of advice for protecting your online security, but it bears repeating. Stop posting private information on public platforms—things like travel plans, personal interests, details about family members or specific news about a work product. All of that information can be used to gain your trust or deceive your co-workers. For instance, a hacker might find out personal histories from your social media, then send a phishing email that says things like: “I’m sorry about your parents’ passing. I feel like I remember you wore sweaters your Mom made at school.”

Even the smallest details, which malicious actors will certainly aggregate from more than one platform, may be unintentionally revealing. Take off your employee ID in photos so hackers can’t use yours as a model to create their own, says Ms. Tobac. Don’t tag images: Geotags alert threat actors as to where you have recently been, which is just the sort of kernel needed to send a malware-embedded survey about last week’s hotel stay, and they can search on Twitter for tags like “#LifeAtCompany” to get intel on you or your business.

And, in photos, “move a bit away from the workstation,” Ms. Tobac says, which easily reveals which software you’re using so bad guys can customize phishing attempts. Also, she adds, “You’d be surprised how often I see a Post-it Note with a username and password hanging there. Then I’m in.”

Stop sharing your work email

One of the easiest ways for hackers to do mischief in a company network is to compromise your email account to send phishing messages. And one of the easiest ways to stop these crooks is to make sure they don’t get your address in the first place.

That means using your work email for work only and never openly on your social-media profiles. In theory, this is easy: On sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, users can keep their emails invisible to anyone but themselves. But most people continue to make them public, thus leaving personal contact information open to data-mining firms or malicious actors.

The consequences can be alarming. Furnished with your email, an attacker can use spear phishing to infect other employees, exploit the company’s defense perimeter and potentially gain access to other employees—or spy on a company’s internal communications. In one common type of attack, called a payment-diversion-fraud scam, criminals get access to the email of an executive who approves invoices and then keep an eye on his or her message traffic, says Derek Manky, chief of security insights and global threat alliances at FortiGuard Labs, the research arm of the cybersecurity solutions firm Fortinet.

When a juicy invoice comes through, “they can change the wire-transfer instructions to go to an offshore account. And social media played a starring role in that,” he says.

Mr. Barr suggests that people have at least four email addresses—one for personal messages, one for work, one for spam and one just for social media—and, furthermore, that they never use their work email for anything else. (Of course, you shouldn’t use the same password for all of them, and change those passwords frequently—preferably using multifactor authentication to make it even tougher for crooks.)

Use different profile pictures on different platforms

AI and powerful software programs can quickly search social-media accounts looking for profile-picture matches, as well as other common characteristics (username, friends, interests) across accounts, says Mr. Barr.

For instance, if someone uses the same profile picture on Instagram and Pinterest, the AI can tell that the accounts belong to the same person, even if the usernames are different. Hackers can then build up a huge trove of information about you to impersonate you more effectively to your co-workers.

Fortunately, there’s one simple line of defense: Whenever possible, don’t use photos of you or people you know in profile pictures.

“If your profile image is not a photo of your kids or your spouse or you, then it makes it difficult for an attacker to make a positive correlation across platforms,” says Mr. Barr.

Keep your cool on dating sites

It is completely normal and even expected to share intimate details through dating apps. So, users typically don’t consider what could happen should that information fall into the hands of malicious actors.

It is a good idea to limit your share group and do a gut-check to decide whether or not what you are posting today might be leveraged against you later—say, using blackmail to coerce you into releasing sensitive information, such as your work credentials.

SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

What steps do you take to keep your information private on social media? Join the conversation below.

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

To comment, you’ll need to be on WSJ.com

Cyber attackers are patient and persistent, says SocialProof Security’s Ms. Tobac: “They might hold back, quietly continue to try to get more and more access, and wait months for the right time and attack.”

If you’ve posted anything that could come back to haunt you, take it down—but best not to post it in the first place, since everything on the internet lives forever. And once you’ve made a connection, consider vetting your suitor through some online searches and then continuing the conversation over a different channel.

“The pictures we share, the descriptions we give, the conversations we have when we think it’s just the two of us…it’s worth thinking about when the right moment is to move all that over to a more secure place like Signal or even a phone call,” Ms. Gardner says.

Sanitize your online CV

Information you post on a job-search site can be valuable to criminals looking to get intel on you or a company. So, if you can get away with it, don’t do things like list a former employer or school by name, says Mr. Barr. “Unless I’m trying to find a job, I’m not sure it’s critical that people know I went to Old Dominion University, so I just make it generic and say ‘Major University,’ the years I attended, and my major.” Along with that, you should remove phone numbers and email addresses, while displaying skill sets and types of jobs you’ve held.

Should you be on a quest for a new gig, Mr. Barr suggests posting a fully loaded CV for a period, then taking it down once the job hunt is completed. What’s more, don’t send any information to people who ask for it unless you confirm their identity.

Mr. Manky advises job seekers to go through what is called a “zero-trust model.” That includes looking up the person who contacted you, going to their company website to make sure it is legitimate and that it links back to the correct domain, and trying not to fall prey to flattery.

“A cybercriminal will try to excite a candidate, saying that this is a perfect fit,” Mr. Manky says. “Oftentimes, the recruiter is pushy or a job is offered without an interview. Those are big red flags.” 

Vet people before accepting requests

Likewise, not everyone who reaches out with a friend request or invite on social media is who they claim to be. The request may be coming from someone looking to worm into your professional network to pilfer trade secrets, disrupt your systems, steal your identity or just harm your public reputation or brand. That’s why it pays to do some due diligence on that person.

PiiQ’s Mr. Barr remembers doing a security test for a tech company’s chief technology officer. With a little homework, he figured out where the executive went to high school.

“Then I got onto Classmates.com, and I found one or two peers who didn’t have Facebook accounts,” Mr. Barr says. He posed as one of those high-school peers, created a fake account and sent the victim a friend request—which he accepted.

Mr. Barr then had access to every breadcrumb available on the CTO’s Facebook profile. All of that could help him gain enough intel and trust to launch a well-crafted spear-phishing attack.

“Vulnerabilities can come from anywhere,” says Mr. Barr. “Social media is still the Wild West.”

Ms. Mitchell is a writer in Chicago. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.