The Risk of Social Networks
Posted by Nick O'Neill on November 13th, 2007 11:00 AMOver the past few days, a number of articles have been written that state the risk of using social networks. According to one article yesterday, “one in four users of social networking sites leaves themselves open to crime by revealing personal details.” Today the BBC published broader security risks for users. According to Get Safe Online, “eight million people leave home wireless networks unprotected against intruders. And more than half of the over-65s polled use a single password for every website they visit, the group said.”
So what are the real risks posed by using social networks? Identity fraud is probably the biggest risk. Protecting yourself is pretty straight-forward. Don’t publish your address or phone number. After checking my Facebook profile it appears that I’m at risk as well. Apparently a combination of contact details and birth dates are sufficient for identity fraudsters to compromise your identity. If you choose to publish your personally identifiable information make sure that the majority of the information is private to users outside of your friends.
Additionally, it’s a good idea to switch up your passwords for each site you use. This prevents fraudsters from creating complete havoc for you. Imagine all of your accounts being compromised simultaneously. Online banking, social networks, email and more are all at risk when you use the same password across networks. Have you ever had any of your accounts compromised?
November 13th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Nick,
Great site. I subscribed. You may be a daily read… I’m telling the office about it, too…
One question relative to this post: Do you use a password management software? I tried a couple, but most are more trouble than they are worth. I’m sure we both have tons of log-ins and managing them all can get ugly. What do you do?
~Jim
November 13th, 2007 at 9:43 pm
Hi Jim,
I actually don’t use a password manager and instead file my paswords away somewhere secret. Wait maybe I shouldn’t talk about that
In all seriousness though I have about 6 or 7 passwords that I use and I just remember them. Corporate ones I didn’t really care about because I was never dealing with any high security issues. In the case of high security you can always use one of those digital key chains.
What do you do?
Best,
Nick