Staying Safe on Social Networks Websites

The more information malicious people have about you, the easier it is for them to take advantage of you. Almost all our information is on internet, and with the new boom of social networks websites we are publishing information about our friends, location, hobbies, all about our daily life.

But when people reveal personal information, they don’t take the same cautions as they would when meeting someone in person, because:

• the internet provides a sense of anonymity
• the lack of physical interaction provides a false sense of security
• they tailor the information for their friends to read, forgetting that others may see it
• they want to offer insights to impress potential friends or associates

Predators may form relationships online and then convince unsuspecting individuals to meet them in person, case of a Girl with just 17 years old in US that was killed by a predator who said be a teenager. Also attackers can distribute malicious code or execute a social engineering attack to get personal or financial data.

What can you do to protect yourself?

Limit the amount of personal information you post Only post information you are comfortable with strangers seeing. When you post information, you can retract it, in spite that you delete it...may still exist in the servers. DO NOT publish personal data such as address or routine activities.

Be skeptical Be careful and don’t believe everything you read or people share, remember internet give the sense of safety and sometimes dangerous anonymous.

Keep a "private" email address which you share only with close friends and family. Never use this private email address on any site. Jmail by www.spamjadoo.com is recommended and provides you privacy.

Check privacy policies to restrict access to only certain people or others preferential settings. Consider limit the people who are allowed to contact you on these sites.

Use strong passwords Don’t use an obvious password or easily to guess, people can pretend be you.

Don't post your email address in "plain" form anywhere on the Web. Instead, you can disguise your email address by writing it in a convoluted way so that humans can still read it, but (spammers machine) bots can't. For example, instead of writing "john@example.com", use "john AT example DOT com"

Remember always that the internet is a public resource.