Filipinos spend roughly 102,054 hours or 11.64 years of their life in the digital world, specifically on social media. That’s why fraudsters and scammers continue to come up with creative ways to steal your information online, and ultimately, your identity and money.

It may seem harmless, but one thing to watch out for is social media tagging.

How can social media tagging be dangerous?

We get tagged on posts or photos by friends and family on social media so often that we don’t even think twice before we click.

Fraudsters see this as an opportunity. They embed malware into videos or links and spread them on social media through tagging, which security researchers call malicious tagging.

Here’s how it works. You get tagged by either a friend or a complete stranger on a malicious post with a link. Like you, the person who “tagged” you is also a victim of the scam. When another person clicks this malicious post, the malware automatically reposts it on the person’s behalf, tagging another set of people on their friends list–and the cycle continues.

Another version of this scam happens on messaging apps. Sometimes, you receive a link that says, “You got a gift!” or “Is this you in the video?” When you click, it either leads you to a phishing site or worse, it automatically sends the same link to your friends under your name.

What should you do if you click on a malicious tag?

1. Change your password immediately. The malware works by taking over your social media account.
2. Check your login history. Go to your account settings and check when the last login to your account was. If you don’t recognize it, report it right away to your social media’s customer service.
3. Report the malicious tags. Just tap the three dots on the upper righthand corner of the post, click “Report Post”, and send a report. This will alert your social media platform to take down the post before it gets shared further.

It’s important to prevent this malware from taking over your account because it can lead to an account takeover and identity theft. Once a fraudster steals your personal information, it’ll be easy to get into your other digital accounts, such as your emails and banking apps.

Always be aware–think before you click.

Adapted from ”Tag, not it: Think before you click”