Facebook users prone to ID theft
IT security and data protection firm, Sophos, conducted an online study whereby they created two fictitious users: 21 year-old “Daisy Felettin” who was represented by a picture of a toy rubber duck and 56 year-old “Dinette Stonily” with a profile picture of two cats lying on a rug. Each sent out 100 friend requests to randomly chosen Facebook users in their age group.
Within two weeks, a total of 95 strangers chose to become friends with Daisy or Dinette – an even higher response rate than when Sophos first performed the experiment two years ago. Eight Facebook users befriended Dinette without even being asked.
89% of the 20-somethings and 57% of the 50-somethings who befriended Daisy and Dinette also gave away their full date-of-birth. Nearly all the others suppressed their year of birth, but this is often easy to calculate or to guess from other information given out.
Just under half of the 20-ish crowd, and just under a third of the 50-ish crowd, gave away personal information about their friends and family.
“People aren’t just handing over their own life story to criminals,” warned Paul Ducklin, Head of Technology at Sophos Asia Pacific in Sydney. “They’re betraying people close to them, too, by helping those cyber crooks build up a detailed picture of their life and their milieu. This is an identity scammer’s dream.”
“Ten years ago it would have taken several weeks for con artists and identity thieves to gather this kind of information about a single person,” said Brett Myroff, CEO of Sophos South Africa.
“Social networks have made it easier for criminals to scoop up information about members of the public. Everyone must learn to be more careful about how they share information online, or risk becoming the victims of identity thieves,” Myroff concluded.
Identity protection tips
Sophos is calling on users of social networking sites to think more carefully about what it means to accept someone as a ‘friend.’ Sophos has produced the following tips for users wanting to protect themselves from identity thieves on Facebook:
Firstly, don’t blindly accept friends. Treat a friend as the dictionary does – “someone whom you know, like and trust.” A friend is not merely a button to click on. You don’t need, and can’t realistically claim to have, 932 true friends.
Secondly, learn the privacy system of any social networking site you join. Use restrictive settings by default. You can open up to true friends later. Don’t give away too much too soon.
Lastly, assume that everything you reveal on a social networking site will be visible on the Internet forever. Once it has been searched, indexed and cached, it may later turn up online no matter what steps you take to delete it.
Facebook users and ID theft – discussion
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