Facebook and Identity

Facebook has been around for quite some time now, more than ten years. It has expanded into memes, Gifs, funny videos and ads about beauty. However, there are also quizzes that have been taking over Facebook. I always found them harmless and fun. There are numerous ways to fall into identity theft from stealing your passport to stealing your sin number. Facebook quizzes happen to be one of those ways. The quizzes where you are asked to fill out personal information such as your pet's name, the city you were born in and your mother's maiden name. All of those questions seem a little too familiar don't you think? yes, they sound like security questions. That's exactly what they are, so a hacker can find your bank account and fill out all the information that you had innocently provided and then you are robbed, sad and broke. Never answer those Facebook questions. The Buzzfeed quizzes are really fun to complete and those are okay to do. Facebook is a great way for you to stay connected to your friends, especially those that you do not see every day. It is great to stay connected to those people. "hackers can create these quizzes to acquire private information from you to hack your accounts or steal your identity using personal information that Facebook provides them with. Additionally, Facebook quizzes may lead you to a website with dangerous downloads, or have malicious links and possible viruses included in the questions. According to a recent report by CNN, this practice was used in a recent scandal, wherein Ukranian hackers used Facebook quizzes to install malicious browser extensions." (Reader's Digest). I am not sure about the accuracy of the information I found since it was on Reader's Digest, but it is disturbing that hackers create quizzes just for you to give out your personal information. Some of us have fallen to be a victim of some scams. We all can identify the telephone scams like when they ask for your bank information and they do not even know your name,then they ask for your credit card number or when you win a trip and ask for your credit card number...you get the idea, it comes to be pretty obvious. Email scams are the ones that are hard to identify because it uses your friends email and then it says click here and you do and then your computer has a horrible virus that now you have lost that ten page paper. Now, hackers have got brains and they are moving along with the social media trend. By taking your fun quiz information and hacking into other accounts. According to Salon.com they advise that you "Take a look at the information you're sharing. When you click on a quiz or any other plug-in or applet in your feed, you should see which information it's requesting from your profile, including who your friends are. Some apps let you edit this information on the spot. But even if you opt out of sharing certain information, you may still be giving up more than you intend." I always see what they are asking before I take a Facebook quiz, usually I stick to Buzzfeed quizzes because knowing what type of shoe I am will not lead to someone hacking my account. Those quizzes are usually inaccurate and it never asks for personal information. Remember that you need to update your password regularly and delete the old Facebook accounts, that is a precaution that should be taken anyway. Not all quizzes are friendly remember that and stay safe people.