At any given moment, a person’s Facebook profile is likely to be filled with the seemingly pointless pictures of family gatherings, posts about pets and birthday congratulations.
The 2010 Social Network Fraud Survey, released by research company Harris Interactive, shows that despite numerous privacy options provided by Facebook, more than 24 million Americans are most likely to leave critical information open to public view. People ages 18 to 34 were said to be more inclined to keep their profiles public.
Things like the names of pets and relatives and birthdays are common security questions for password-protected websites and may allow identity thieves to break into accounts.
Thomas Oscherwitz, the vice president of government affairs and chief privacy officer for ID Analytics, a consumer risk research firm, said leaving information public – no matter how trivial – could be considered a risk.
“Users need to remember that the same information they are posting online is often used for security or challenge questions when they log into financial or other online accounts to verify their identity,” Oscherwitz said.
Read the full story at the Temple News.
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