Threads app poses some security concerns

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The new Threads app by Instagram is growing in popularity, and people are quickly joining.

“I have Threads right here,” Mateo Uribe who is on Threads. “It’s popping right now, so I don’t think it’s going anywhere anytime soon.”

Threads is Instagram’s text-based conversation app, which is believed to be a competitor for Twitter.

“It’s going to be better than Twitter,” Stephenie Sanchez said.

She said she’s had Twitter since 2017.

“For me, it’s kind of weird that they’re doing the limit of the tweets and the verified accounts that you have to pay,” Sanchez said. “It got kind of weird, so I think I’m gonna switch to Threads.”

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Friday morning that Threads has 70 million signups in just four days since its launch.

Patrizia Hodge, who is the mother of a teenager, watches how her son is using social media.

“I do want him to be on social media, but as long as he lets us know what’s going on and if there are things that, ‘Hey, this isn’t right,'” Hodge said about her 14-year-old son Xzavier Hodge using social media.

She and her husband said they regularly talk to their son about online safety.

“There have been multiple concerns, especially hearing with the drugs that are sold, and the kids are targeted, the human trafficking,” Hodge said.

And with a new app comes new concerns.

“With Threads, all things considered, what would you say is the threat level?” asked WPTV reporter Joel Lopez to WPTV internet security expert Alan Crowetz, the president and CEO of InfoStream.

“I would say medium,” Crowetz said. “I would call this a yellow alert.”

Crowetz said Threads has the ability to collect a lot of personal information such as location, finance and even health and fitness information.

“Any new source, treasure trove of data, is just yet another area of vulnerability, another thing hackers are going after,” Crowetz said.

He said to watch out for fake accounts or fake links that could compromise your information.

“It’s a new platform, so there might be weaknesses that people can exploit,” Crowetz said.

A big concern for Crowetz is that the app works with third parties but doesn’t disclose who they are.

“Do we trust these third parties? What are they doing with this data?” Crowetz asked. “We know they use it for advertisements but oftentimes there’s more.”

Crowetz said the fact that Threads runs through Instagram and Meta is a positive.

Since the company has had its breaches, he said security should be tighter

“They not only have a ton of expertise working for them, they’re very paranoid about security and they’ve been burned a couple of times, bad,” Crowetz said. “They feel the pressure to get it right.”

According to Threads, you can deactivate your account, but the only way it can be deleted is by also deleting your Instagram account.