Protecting Yourself on Social Media Websites
Posted on Tue, May 24, 2011
More than ever people and businesses are taking part in social networking sites. While social media sites allow us to connect with friends, clients and even potential customers, they also put us at greater risk for the possibility of identity theft, brand hijacking, and privacy breaches, among others.
Following are several ways to reduce your exposure and protect yourself or your business.
• On Facebook and other social media sites, take advantage of the highest privacy settings so only the people you know, like and trust can see what’s going on in your personal or professional life. By default, most privacy settings are wide open.
• Don’t provide, post, or submit any confidential personal data (e.g. banking details, medical records, full birth dates, home town, birth place, social security number, etc.). Social networking sites don’t require this sort of information to join.
• Don’t post a lot of personal identifying information on social media sites such as your spouse’s name, your children’s names, your pets’ names or your mother’s maiden name All that additional information allows a hacker to crack the code of a password reset and change your password on many different sites.
• Protect your passwords. Start by choosing cryptic passwords with random characters, numbers, and punctuation marks. Change them periodically--and immediately if there's the slightest evidence that someone may have broken into your account. Assume that all unsolicited requests for your user name and password are hoaxes, no matter where you come across them. Never auto save your password information, and clear your history at least once a week.
• Don’t post or tweet your whereabouts or when you’re going to be any place specific. A burglar could take advantage of that time to rip you off.
• Avoid letting friends, peers, co-workers or staff access their social networks on your computer, and don’t sign into your networks on their machines. Others could introduce infections to your computer through unsafe practices, or your login security could be compromised via cookies saved on your computer.
• Parents need to make your children friend you. This enables you to watch them, and them to know that you’re keeping an eye on them.
• Be mindful of what you say when responding or posting on your Facebook “wall.” What you post may affect your ability to get a job, get into school or find a mate. Remember, you can’t completely delete an online post.
• Always look for the https:// and/or padlock symbol on your browser to indicate a secure site. Most browsers also allow you to hover over the site name to be sure that it is a verified web service.
• Always log out of social media sites, especially if you use a public computer at a library or school. Even if you use a friend’s PC, you have to specifically log out of that site. Just closing down the browser isn’t enough because the next person who opens up the browser may find that they’re still logged in as you.