MySpace and Facebook
An Identity Thief’s Goldmine
By Daniel Muniz

Social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are an identity thief’s dream come true. Where else can people be so willing to divulge highly detailed personal information to a total stranger. As a result, cyber criminals are easily stealing identities to plunder bank accounts and exploit credit ratings.

MySpace and Facebook and dozens of other smaller venues have been phenomenally successful in attracting millions of people across the world to create profiles on their servers. In general, people enjoy putting all kinds of personal stuff in these accounts such as pictures, artwork, music, and anything else.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with anyone publishing his or her own web site in cyberspace.

The problem arises when far too much information is revealed.

Now for some folks, that isn’t an issue. For example, lots of young women like to plaster graphic pictures of themselves only wearing their bra and panties (and in some cases, wearing a lot less than that). In fact, some people seem to get even more excited by any notoriety they created on the net.

However, it is this kind of openness that has created the perfect conditions for con artists to run their scams.

If people are willing to share just about anything that ought to be fairly private and intimate, then they may also be willing to share what seems to be innocuous and trivial personal details about themselves. And so many such profiles and blogs are already overloaded with what appears to be harmless data.

But what may seem like innocent details on the surface are exactly the kinds of crucial facts that an identity thief really needs. Such examples include a date of birth, phone numbers, places of employment (previous and current), mother’s maiden name, the names of a spouse, pets, and friends, personal likes and dislikes, hobbies and interests, and quite a bit of other similar pieces of identifying information.

In essence, the more of these kinds of details they can get, the easier it will be to spoof or steal an identity.

Even though they don’t have a password or even an account number or user name cyber criminals are willing to spend a spend a lot of time online or talking to customer service representatives in the hopes of eventually tricking them into providing access to someone else’s personal accounts. Now how can a thief accomplish such a feat?

A lot of financial institutions have a so-called “secret question” that the owner of the account had previously set up. In case a user name or password is forgotten, this method can temporarily bypass the security measures of an account in order to gain access to the system. The fatal flaw to this approach is that a lot of people like to pick a question that has a really easy answer such as a pet’s name or mother’s maiden name.

With all the personal information a con artist has gleamed from someone’s profile online, there is now a much better chance to break into a bank or credit account, especially if he or she can exploit any weaknesses of a company such as a faulty procedure or a customer service representative not following the correct protocol.

In addition, there is also a much better chance to break into an online account by running a software program to guess a password or by using a thief’s own gut instinct based on the personal details they scavenged.

Even though Facebook and MySpace have security measures in place, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.

A user has to be willing to employ and actively use such measures instead of relying on the default settings to keep any miscreants from snooping through their accounts. Even so, there are so many people who are always looking to add more friends into their social circles. As a result, identity thieves have found it pretty easy just to ask a total stranger who has an account on one of these social networking sites for access to their profiles.

Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t even bother to invoke any security measures at all or they simply disable them which means that the whole world can view their accounts at any time. Again, this is not an issue as long as there are not too many identifying details that can aid a cyber criminal.

Identity theft in the United States and across the world is on the rise.

As more people establish their presence in cyberspace, criminals are going to exploit any kind of weaknesses they can find. Connectivity to the world has its benefits but it also has its dangers. Sadly, there are far too many people who are more than willing to accept just about any stranger they found on the net as a new friend. And even if there isn’t a whole of information on a Facebook or MySpace account, it doesn’t take much “innocuous” dialogue for an identity thief to unobtrusively acquire important facts that can instantly ruin someone’s life.

It is this kind of ease that will continue to feed the explosive growth of cyber criminals. The Internet is just a goldmine of unsuspecting victims who are a bit too casual with their vital statistics.

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