Dating apps and social media accounts are the new way for hackers to commit identity theft. In the era of Tinder, Bumble, Hinge, and so many other dating services, oftentimes your biography is enough information for hackers to guess your password. We want to share some tips from our security team on maintaining a secure social profile.
Do not overshare.
- First, we will start with saying that online dating and social media can be safe if you don’t overshare information.
- Password recovery questions often are personal information about yourself such as: names of pets, mother’s maiden name, and third grade teacher. When you share your pet’s name in your profile, you are giving hackers the key to your passwords.
Social media security updates
- When social media accounts change their security settings make sure that you go review them to ensure that you aren’t displaying too much information.
- This means keeping your date of birth and previous education private. Hackers can use this information to guess your passwords.
No live updates
- When you share your location in recent times this let’s people know your whereabouts.
- For example, you’re out walking your dog and you post about it, then people know that you’re not at home right now and your dog isn’t there either to guard it. This would be prime time for someone to break into your house.
- Another example would be going on vacation. If you post live updates about your vacation, then criminals know you will be out of town and that gives them plenty of time to break into your home.
Be cautious of familiar fraud
- Familiar fraud can performed by a significant other, family, parents, kids, and coworkers, because they use the close relationship you have to take advantage of you.
- If you don’t think they happen often, nearly 10,000 victims of cyber crimes (a year) know their attacker. This why passwords should never be shared with anyone and your tech devices should remain locked anytime you are away from them.
What You Post Online Can Be Sold
- Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter or Youtube, don’t profit from you using their site. They profit off of selling your data from those sites to vendors that want to target you for their commercial campaigns.
- This is because they make their money every time you click off on a link or an ad. They make profit off of that because they’ve sold your data to another third party. And it’s legal!
