How to Prevent Social Media Identity Theft

Social Media is no more a leisure time practice. It has become very much crucial and interlinked to our real life and some vital corners of our personal and professional activities. Reports say that by April 2014 there are 1.28 billion Facebook users. Out of which daily active users are 757 million. Other social media sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Instragram are getting equally popular.

More a platform becomes popular among users, more it develops scope of exploitation. Similarly, if social networking sites have amazing plus points like it keep us connected to distant friends, it keep us updated with the happenings of our friends life etc, it also has some major downsides.

Identity theft is one of the leading among major downsides of social media.. It first risks the online presence of an individual and then slowly makes inroad to his real life existence.

Read below to learn how to prevent social media identity theft

1. It is always recommended that you install theft protection software on your computer and other devices that you use to access your social media accounts. Keep a point to update this software at a regular interval. Experts suggest that it is good to update these kinds of software on a weekly basis, especially if you are using Windows operating systems (OS).

2. Whenever, you access your  social networking sites from public, workplace or other PC, always make sure not to click the box ‘Remember or save password.’ Most of the social networking site, by default get this box checked in, hence be vigilant and ensure that your passwords never get saved while you are using third party systems. In fact, if you are not using your personal computer or laptop then try using private browsing. This will keep no records of what you accessed.

3. Whenever you create an account with a social networking site, always use your real and complete name. Use your name as username as well as in the profile columns. To avoid identity theft you should use your name as a brand name and should prevent your account from being taken by anyone else. In the social media forum, people do become victim where other users impersonate themselves. Hence, try to protect your name or account from any kind of illegal usage.

4. By including selected friends in your friend list, you often think that you are communicating within a trusted zone. This may hold true within a real life friends group but not in an online friends group that you create through social networking sites. Therefore, it is always wise to avoid disclosing personal information on social media sites. Address, birth-date, phone number or discussing crucial personal information is not a very wise idea.

Identity thieves can commit crimes using this information revealed on social networking sites. Hence, it is recommended never to make this information open to ‘everyone’ or ‘public.’

5. Considering growing cases of online identify theft, almost all social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, etc. offer strong security setting options that you all should take advantage of. These security settings don’t get applied by default, hence are to be manually changed. With right kind of settings, you can control of who can view your  profile, or what the visitor can read and what he can’t read, who can see your  posts, etc. Hence, in all the social networking sites, users must opt for strong security settings that enable them to have control over the comments, links or posts¸ photos appearing on their profile page.

6. Always create complicated or tough to guess passwords for your social networking sites. Although, the profile doesn’t contain any financial information, yet it is no less important. After all, your online identify is inevitably interlinked to your real life identify as well. Hence, what you are posting on your profile, what you are commenting on others, whom you are friends with, these behaviors of your’s on a social networking forum are as important as these are in your real society. Thereby, it is important that you don’t let others to have clue of your password so that they can’t misuse your account to defame you or your friends. Experts say that don’t use general sentences like “honesty is the best policy” sort rather prefer a sentence that makes sense to you only. Moreover, make sure to change your passwords of social media accounts after every 1 to 4 months.

7. It is often seen that in a craze of updating posts, people often talk about their travel plans like “night out in so and so pub” or “heading to so and so place.” There is as such no harm in posting the pictures of your travel adventure after it is over but making your plans public even before taking up the journey is not safe. Because you might not know, who on the web can use this information for wrong reasons? Cyber crime is not limited to hacking of accounts and making use of credit card information only. If you post that you will be out of city for three days, in a way you are telling the thieves that your home and family members are off guard for three days. Hence, enjoy your travel first and then make in public on social networking sites rather than making in public beforehand.

Groom your social media practices keeping in mind the aforementioned points. This will keep you safe, secured and will also maintain your goodwill among your friends. Do social networking safely to keeping your identify and fame up.

Brooke M. Perry is an ardent technician associated with Qresolve online pc support with wide experience of fixing issues with PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphone. With a strong track record of devising effective ways of online tech support and system security, she has so far helped thousands of users across the globe.