“Today, social media touches virtually every aspect of our lives. And with it, cyber threats. While social media has long been a tool for cyber criminals, the widespread availability of AI is only heightening the threat, as deepfakes and AI generated content blurs the line between reality and fiction.

"We just need to look at Malaysia to see how AI can be used by malicious actors. A recent example includes deepfake videos featuring former national shuttler Datuk Lee Chong Wei video that features him promoting an investment scam circulating on social media and reaching thousands of Malaysians. This underscores AI's potential for creating convincing but false content, and social media’s power to amplify cybercriminals' reach.

"Pairing social media and AI-generated content gives cyber criminals a powerful social engineering tool to manipulate everyday people into taking risky actions, like clicking on malicious links. 

"World Social Media Day reminds us that to protect ourselves, we must scrutinise the content we see carefully, verifying sources and checking for inconsistencies in videos or images. It's also prudent to regularly review and adjust your account’s privacy settings to control who can see your posts and personal information. By staying vigilant, we can protect ourselves in this new online threat landscape in which we live.”

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