Know 4 Risks Of Data Leakage In Cyberspace, One Of Them Can Be A Victim Of Sexual Extortion

YOGYAKRTA The risk of personal data leakage must be known, considering that recently there have been cases of data leakage in cyberspace. The target is not only small communities, it can also be officials, artists, to institutions or ministries.

Like the case experienced by former Minister of Communication and Information Johnny G. Plate. Johnny's data was reviewed and published on social media in 2022.

Johnny became a victim of the spread of personal data, aka doxing, right on his birthday, namely on Saturday, September 10. The personal data of the Secretary General of the NasDem Party was distributed by a hacker named Bjorka, quoted from VOI.

Through a Telegram channel or group, Bjorka distributed a photo of Johnny's personal data, such as information on the date of birth, complete address, Population Identification Number (NIK), Family Card Number (KK) and various other data.

Please note, in the cyber security concept, there are two types of data that should not be leaked, namely digital identity and personal data.

Digital identity is the identity of a digital platform user that includes identities that appear like account names, photos, and user descriptions, to unknown identities including passwords and the One Time Password (OTP) period.

Meanwhile, what is meant by priadi data is all information which includes name, date of birth, home address, email, and telephone number. Personal data also includes health data, biometrics, financial information, sexual preference, political views, and criminality data.

If personal data is leaked, the data owner has the potential to experience four cyber crime risks, as compiled by VOI from various sources:

The first risk that the data owner has the potential to experience if personal data is leaked is that bank accounts can fall to cybercriminals.

Breaking into accounts is usually done through social manipulation by tricking victims.

For example, the perpetrator can send an electronic message (e-mail) accompanied by a urgent or manipulative message so that the victim provides personal data and information on bank services on a link or attachment.

Based on Tempo's records, there were at least 6 cases of burglary of bank accounts in January-April 2021. This case caused losses of up to almost Rp57 billion.

Not only breaking into bank accounts, this mode can also be used to drain the contents of digital wallets such as Go-Pay, and OVO.

Personal data can also be misused to access online loans, aka Pinjol. This case is usually done by other people who pretend to be the owner of the data. On the other hand, the victim did not know if the data was used to access loans. If this happens, the owner of the original data can be terrorized for refunds and interest.

Personal data can be misused to map the profile of the data owner. For example, it is used for political purposes or advertisements on social media.

An example of this case is the leakage of the 2024 Election Fixed Voter List (DPT) data. This data leak can be used to map the user's political preferences which can then be used as a target for disinformation.

Data owners also have the potential to become victims of sexual extortion (sextortion) if their personal data is leaked.

Cybercriminals can invite data owners to have sexual conversations or offer video call sex (VCS) services. These activities can be recorded and used to extort victims.

Not only that, pictures or private videos posted on social media can also be broken and used for sexual extortion.

In this case, hackers usually break into user social media accounts using predictable passwords, such as name, date of birth, place of birth, and so on.

That's the risk of personal data leakage that has the potential to be experienced by data owners. To find out if your personal data has been leaked on the internet or not, see the article How to Check Personal Data Leakage.