CAPE CANAVERAL, UNITED STATES - 2020/05/30: SpaceX founder Elon Musk looks on after being recognized ... [+]
“It’s better to give than to receive,” says the Bible verse.
Elon Musk might want to think about the opposite of that ancient wisdom when it comes to his personal security.
Recently, the high-profile entrepreneur and prolific Twitter user noted how he is not worried about his direct messages getting hacked.
He was a victim of the worst hack in the short history of Twitter, as hackers impersonated him recently and compromised the accounts of other users like Barack Obama, Kanye West, Bill Gates, and Jeff Bezos.
The hackers used the accounts to promote a Bitcoin scam. Security professionals say direct messages from Elon Musk were likely not exposed because he has a verified account.
Musk said he mostly uses DMs for meme sharing: “I’m not that concerned about my DMs being made public,” he says. “I mean, we can probably cherry pick some section of my DMs that sound bad out of context but overall my DMs mostly consist of swapping memes.”
The problem, of course, is that his intended use of DMs is not really the issue here. He’s likely sending out private messages and not revealing too much about his company plans. (He tends to do that in public tweets instead.) Most of us view social media as inherently unprotected and not secure, a place to share kitten photos and talk about the latest gossip.
However, a DM is about as secure as it gets on Twitter. Other users might send private messages to Musk and others; some of them might be employees of SpaceX or Tesla. He might have investors who contact him not knowing that Twitter is, apparently, easy to hack.
Most of us don’t think about what we are transmitting out to the world using social media too much. We realize it’s probably not smart to send a Facebook chat to one of our kids that contains a credit card number or other private info. We probably don’t DM anyone with a personal cell phone number or even our home address, knowing it’s a short step away from a public tweet. (We know sometimes people send a public tweet when they meant it as a DM.)
Not everyone we know sees it that way, however.
As a journalist, I’ve had potential leads send me direct messages with a story idea or even an exclusive, mostly because they can’t seem to find my email or any other contact information. In a few cases, a reader has sent me a follow-up lead to a major news story by direct message. (It all starts with having to follow each other first.) This is obviously not on the same level as an investor contacting Musk through DM, and maybe they would never do that, but you never know.
We can control the outgoing messages we send and keep them secure. We can’t always guarantee security for anyone who sends us a direct message on social media. There’s an illusion of safety and security, which makes it even more ripe for hacking. Criminals like to target the instances when we think hacking is not a big deal.
Is there a treasure trove of DM activity with Musk? Probably not. It’s not exactly the primary place to exchange private information for most of us.
But then again — maybe the reason we don’t view social media as that valuable is because these throwaway messages seem so ephemeral.
Here’s hoping that changes someday.
