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Social media is a conduit for thieves to get personal data (they can use it, for instance, to open up a credit line in the victim’s name). Though many people are concerned their personal information will get in the wrong hands, the funny thing is that they continue posting personal information—way too personal.
The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center says that social media is a fertile area for criminals to scam people.
Phishing
You are lured to a phony website that masquerades as your bank or some other important account. The lure might be a warning that you’ll lose your account unless you click the link to reactivate it. Once on the site, you’re then lured into typing in your login information—that the scammer will then use to gain access to your account.
Clickjacking
You’re lured into clicking on a link. Once you do this, trouble begins, either with a download of malware or you being suckered into revealing account information—to the thief on the other end.
Recently I was perusing the FB page of a person I knew from school, and a recent post was what appeared to be a video in still format, ready to be clicked for viewing.
And what was the lure? A man’s head and torso on a road, his severed legs nearby, with the caption saying that this motorcyclist’s cam had recorded his fatal accident. This was surely a scam because the photo has been around for quite some time with only scant information. Now suddenly there’s a video of the accident? Yeah, right.
Doxing
Doxing is that of leaking someone’s personal identifying data into cyberspace without their permission, potentially leading to ID theft, among other problems.
Make sure your privacy settings are at their highest, but this is only an adjunct to being very judicious about what you post.
This content is provided by an external author without editing by Finextra. It expresses the views and opinions of the author.
Nick Green Director at Purple Patch Broking Ltd
22 August
Oleg Stefanet Chief Risk Officer at payabl.
20 August
Venkatesh P Co-Founder and Director at Maveric Systems
19 August
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