Social Media & Identity Theft Fraud- What is the Connection?
With every passing day, people are falling victims of identity theft and fraud, with an estimated total of $21 billion losses every year. Proving that these issues are growing companies dealing with sensitive information are enforcing measures to protect their data from ID theft and fraud, but cybercriminals are becoming sophisticated and finding new ways to collect information — either through a data breach or by turning to social media for information.
According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), identity theft is defined as
“it occurs when someone steals another’s personal information or data without their knowledge to commit theft or fraud.”
How social media can make you fall for identity theft?
Recently, social media giants Facebook and Twitter have suffered cyber attacks. No data was compromised in the attack through Facebook. But many consumers lost their data on Twitter.
Even though companies rely on technology to protect consumers, they are still vulnerable to attacks. Facebook management confessed that the computers of its employees were infected with malware from a mobile developer’s website that was already compromised. Cybercriminals most of the time focus their attention to gain access to the companies’ employee databases to penetrate into the system and steal information.
Criminals can also get your personal information through third-party applications. Most social media sites have apps that ask for permission to access your account information at the time of installation. This is one-way hackers can steal your personal data to commit fraud.
Most of the time you provide personal details you would not share otherwise on your social media accounts. Information such as your full name, date of birth, hometown, pet names, interests and hobbies, nature of work, and home or office address are just some of the personal details that can get you to fall a victim to identity theft on social media. Criminals can easily manipulate these details to commit a variety of frauds. Protecting this information along with your SSN and driver’s license number is one effective method of identity theft prevention.
The other main reason why social media sites are a platform for identity theft is that there are many underage children on these sites who can easily fall in traps of criminals. The unregulated nature of social media platforms provides cybercriminals and fraudsters with an edge. As there are no proper age verification checks on social media sites so cybercriminals can lure children to get their information for various frauds by child identity theft.
By accepting an invitation or friend request from an unfamiliar person can allow attackers to extract your personal information, but consumers should be wary of impostors creating fake accounts in their name and posting messages under their ID. Celebrities are more vulnerable to this trend.
Protect Your Identity on Social Media
Here are some tips to protect your identity in the age of social media:
- Create strong, multi-character passwords for your email and all apps on your phone, and remember to change them often. It’s better to activate 2-Factor Authentication so that no one can access your account.
- Use privacy settings to restrict strangers’ access to your profile. Be on your guard against “phishing” and identity theft scams by restricting fake friend’s requests.
- Add as little personal information as possible so that criminals do not have plenty of your data to exploit.
- Be cautious about what you are posting. Never use your personal information such as Social Security number, current address, pictures of your home, workplace or school, your address, or telephone number.
- Avoid accepting friend requests from people you are not familiar with.
- Verify any link that is sent to you that is from a friend. Do not add any personal information in such a link.
- Up to 80% of cyber threats can be removed if you have updated the computer’s firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware programs.
