Social networks are all the rage. Whether you're hopping on Facebook, Myspace or Twitter, there's someone to catch up with, share videos with or simply update about your fantabulous day.
However, an inherent problem with joining a social network is that in order to participate, you almost always have to release some portion of your identity. Your friends want to see pictures of you and your family, you want to share where you went shopping today and you may even want to ask, "What's up with Mastercard lowering my credit card limit to $500?"
The problem is that getting too social on social networks can be a threat to your identity protection. And the last thing you need is to have to worry about identity theft when having a good time online.
How Identity Theft Occurs On Social Networking Sites
As you can imagine, identity thieves can be very savvy individuals. They know you're probably trying to protect your identity like many others, so they come up with tons of ways to convince you to give up your identity or part ways with your money. You might be surprised that they can accomplish their goal in two easy steps:
1. The Person Makes You Think They're Your Friend
This is actually easier than you may think. A person may request to be friends with you on Myspace then collect your friends and ask to be their friends as well. After they've gained friendships with your friends, they simply look on Facebook and go through the same process.
After comparing the two friend lists, they can see what friends don't have profiles on one page or the other, create profiles under their names, snag their pictures and add you as a friend.
Just that fast an online identity has been stolen. But that's not the end of the end of the story.
2. The Thief Will Ask You For Help or Personal Details
Now that the thief has taken your friend's online identity, he can now work on taking even more from you. He may say that he's in trouble and needs you to wire him $300. Or he may ask you for your address again to send out that wedding invitation - or maybe even your credit card number to help with an emergency.
You may assume that you wouldn't trust this person, but keep in mind that the thief has already gauged the activities of your friend who has given too much information about his or her life. Now all the thief has to do is mirror the conversations posted right on the walls to get important information from you.
A Story of Social Networking Identity Theft
Bryan Rutberg discovered he was the victim of an identity theft scam known as the "419" or "Nigerian" ploy that ultimately ended up scamming his friends as well. After the thieves were able to steal his Facebook login and password, they changed his status to appear that he had been robbed at gunpoint in the UK and needed money to get home.
They sent e-mails to dozens of friends asking "Can you just get some money to us" and "I'll refund you as soon as am back home. Let me know please." Some of his friends were convinced that he was in trouble, sending $600 and even $1,200 via Western Union to the UK to help him. (Read about more e-mail scams you should know)
After his family alerted Rutberg to the scam, he realized he was locked out of his account by the scammers. They even went as far as "de-friending" his wife so that she could not post a message to his wall alerting friends of the scam. He was able to resolve it the next day, but unfortunately, his friends' generosity was lost forever.
How You Can Protect Yourself
In Rutberg's incident, he tried to convince Facebook to beef up their security, but while they say they have, they explained that there's only so much support they can offer as a free site. This means it is up to you to protect yourself from the possibility of identity theft.
However, many users simply aren't doing it. In fact, PC World reports that a third of social networkers have at least three bits of information on their pages that could easily lead to identity theft. This information includes names, addresses, birth dates, mothers' maiden names, pets' names, phone numbers and kids' names.
With this information, thieves can play around with login IDs and passwords until they crack the code, and before you know it, your identity is stolen.
Protecting yourself is not impossible, however. Here are some ways that you can safeguard your identity when on social networking sites:
- Set your profile pages to private: By setting your online profiles to private, you can block the general public from viewing your information. This instead requires them to request friendship before having full access to your page.
- Exclude your last name in your profile: Sites like Facebook make it difficult to not post a real first and last name; however, nothing's stopping you from altering your name some. Also, you could consider making yourself unsearchable in search engines and even in Facebook so that your real name could be used but no one can find you - you instead initiate connections with others.
- Make sure your photos are un-sharable: Both Myspace and Facebook provide options that allow you prohibit others from taking your pictures. Taking this step is a great way to stop others from assuming your identity.
- Beware of unfamiliar links on social networking sites: On Twitter, people often post links to various videos and other files. While this can be fun, be sure that whatever link you follow doesn't require you to enter personal information that could result in you giving your identity away.
- Create unique passwords: Make sure that passwords you create for your social networking sites are nothing like your financial site logins. This way, if for some reason your passwords are discovered, you couldn't easily be used on PayPal or other places where your money is stored.
- Make your "friends" confirm your relationship: If you receive a friend request, there's no harm in confirming that the person is who they say they are. Taking this step could help you avoid unfortunate situations in the future.
Of course, we all know that shredding documents, checking our credit reports, protecting our identification and disclosing few personal details all help to protect our identities both on and off the Internet. But with threats popping up on social networking sites, it's now crucial that we take even greater measures to protect ourselves.
You should join our social networks, we promise we won't steal your identity. We're on Facebook and Twitter.
