Identity Theft Through Social Media Essay Example For Students

Identity Theft Through Social Media Essay Identity Theft Through Social Media Identity thieves are now making their way through social media sites, targeting more innocent people than ever . There are four major way s peoples identity s are at risk with the use of social media , these risks include general information ,facial recognition ,status updates ,and internet invitations ,these are the major way s identity theft is made possible through social media. The first way identity thieves are stealing others identities through social media, is simply by looking at a person s general information . General information on social media sites are things such as a person s name, phone number, any schools that they have attended and email addresses . Due to low privacy settings just about anyone can access this information and use it to their advantage. Within each social media site there is a search bar ,search bars allow for people to look up a name of any person who owns a social media account .Thieves can use the search bar to look up any random name such as Jane Doe . By searching this name hundreds of profiles can pop up with pictures allowing for anyone to click on .Once clicked on thieves can view jane does profile (depending on the high or low privacy setting) ,thieves can now view general information take note and go on with what knowledge they have just obtained to stealing a person s identity .According to the Better Business bureau about 30% of Facebook users did not have their profiles set to private ,compared to the 14% of people who did not know their Facebook privacy settings at all. With this statistic the 14-30 % of people just on Facebook are now at risk of identity theft merely from privacy settings ,protecting information . .a social networking site. This page will ask you to re-enter your password. These criminals will get you to this page from a link in an email or private message or public post with a link to a fraudulent site. If you are already logged into a networking site and then asked to log in again, be aware that it is a red flag and it is probably a scam designed to make you divulge a lot of personal information to someone with bad intentions. This is perfect example of someone with bad intentions ( identity thieves) inviting you to a page through internet invites, attempting to have people generate information . Although social media is a great way to be social and connect with people , people should be aware of the people they are connecting and sharing information with ,because its never truly known who is on the other side of the screen and their intentions .