It’s amazing how social trends can often make people do the most stupid things. Sales of paper shredders have gone through the roof of late because the public has woken up to the identity theft risks of making personal data available to strangers. So far so good – an entirely intelligent response. So what makes often the very same people put all of their personal data online instead through social networking sites like Facebook?! As this article rightly points out, this is an open invitation to phishing scams that can become far more targeted and convincing to the individual. I have no doubt that news stories of the first Facebook scam victims will be just around the corner.
If you are going to use sites like this the important thing is to be very circumspect about what you reveal about yourself. You should share the bare minimum at all times. Of course, the really smart move is not to get involved in the first place (which sounds like a killjoy’s view right up until someone empties your bank account for you).
