Social Media: Is Your Identity Safe?

The other day I was chatting online with an old friend. We had recently re-connected on Facebook after not seeing each other in about six years. We were both curious about a co-worker, who had been a mutual friend, so I did a quick Google search on his name and I found his Myspace profile and a few other social media listings. To my surprise, one of the listings was a police report and he was in jail!

With search engines indexing social media sites, and sharing being a social media requirement you can bet the incidences of online identity theft will go up. Since 2000 over 10 million cases have been reported with annual increases of over 80% as reported by Online Identity Theft Credit Report. At this rate, within the next six years everyone in the United States could statistically be a victim, with at least 30 million people being a victim in more than one instance.

As you surf the internet, know cyber criminals are all around you. Cyber criminals use malicious links; to run programs, phish for your account credentials and worm into your contacts to spread more malicious links. These links are not just tied to Twitter and Facebook. If a social media service has a publish and/or email feature you are at risk. Recently, Toralv Dirro, a security strategist at McAfee Labs estimated 4 million computers are infected with a botnet threat. What’s a botnet? It’s a scary program that makes your computer a zombie allowing cyber criminals access to your machine. Once you’ve been compromised, your computer resources become shared along with your identity. Are you scared?

When is social media sharing too much information (TMI)? I had to find out because unlike others who only follow and friend people they know in real life (IRL), I’m open to adding and friending people I’ve never met IRL. To find out the TMI answer, I decided to take a test on staysafeonline.org and an interesting question stood out, “How web-based is your life?” This is an indicator of your identity theft vulnerability. While I had an OK score, I started to wonder about my transparency on the web and my protection. There are two components; protecting your computer and protecting yourself.

Here are some tips I’ve found and some friendly advice from my IT Guy.

Protecting Your Computer

We all know about anti-virus software, but did you know when you purchase a new computer or software package you may need more modules to protect you from surfing the web, using USB devices, and accessing Wi-Fi spots? Did you know the Wi-Fi spots you access could be another person’s computer in the same location? It’s important to know, learn and update all anti-virus software on your system daily!  Make sure you have anti-virus settings to look for updates in short intervals. A virus comes out on a Monday and if you don’t update until Wednesday your system is compromised. I have my anti-virus software set-up to update hourly.

Keep your browser software up-to-date. When you are signaled to update your browser software do it and don’t wait. Don’t allow your browser to save your computer password.

Change your computer password every 90 Days. I know it’s a pain, but this will help!

Protecting Yourself

I know everyone likes to talk about their vacations, and you can, just don’t say when you are going on vacation. When you arrive home from vacation, it’s safe to blast the universe with photos, comments and stories.

Social media applications like FourSquare and Brightkite allow users to geo tag their current location. I’m a big fan of both applications, but to be safe, turned off the share with Twitter and Facebook. With sites like PleaseRobMe.com you can never be too safe, so protect you and your property.

Use your Facebook Privacy settings.  Imagine if I checked into my bank using a geo tagging application and this information was seen on both Twitter and Facebook. On my Facebook I have my hometown, current address, family members and my dogs name.  How hard would it be to guess one of my bank questions knowing all my Facebook information.  Not that hard….

When you create an account on any website and the site requests you to answer questions to validate who you are, use bogus answers that you CAN remember.

Make phrase passwords, use a phrase and stick to a maximum of 35 characters. I like this password option over keyword generators, because it’s specific to me and it’s easy to change them regularly.

If you have other suggestions on keeping your identity safe while using social media, feel free to leave a comment and share with the group.

Resources:
Botnet
OnGuardOnline
Evil Kneber Botnet Packs Mighty Malware Punch