The Dangers of Facebook
Please spare a few minutes to read this. It's an eye opener.
"The information people give out on Face-book, when linked up with other information freely available on the internet, is an absolute goldmine for criminals," the Daily Mail quoted Michael Fraser, a reformed burglar who presents the BBC's 'Beat The Burglar' programme, as saying.
"One year, you might have a party and give out your address. A while later, you might tell everyone that it is your 30th birthday.
"So, if you've accepted me as a friend, I know your name, your address and your birth date.
"From that, I can go to 192.com<http://192.com/> and on there I can find out what you do for a living, how much your home is worth, and whether you're likely to be worth burgling.
"I might have already made up my mind because you've posted party pictures on your Face-book. I can see what kind of valuables you have in the house, and which rooms they're in. Then you go and tell your Face-book friends how much you're looking forward to going on holiday next Tuesday etc.
"I can go on to Google Street View and see the actual photographs of your home. I can see if you have a burglar alarm, or whether there are any bushes in the garden to hide in. I can see all the alleyways I can escape down and, of course, I know you won't be at home.
"Once you accept a stranger into your Face-book account, they can begin what we call social engineering: delicately asking questions to build up information about you,' said Jason Hart, senior vice president of CRYPTO Card Network Security.
"And that can cause havoc. Let's say they got your e-mail address, then they could go to your e-mail account, pretending to be you, and saying you have forgotten your password.
"Once they have that secret information, the e-mail account will let them in. Once they are in there, they can find lots of sensitive information, such as your Amazon and e-Bay account history.
"They can then go to those sites, pretending to be you, and saying you have lost your passwords, and guess what happens then?
"Those sites send the passwords to your e-mail account: the one that they have already conned their way into.
"Crooks who do this usually use the credit card details you have stored there to buy online gift vouchers that can be traded on the internet. It is a form of instant currency.
"Even worse, if you have a Pay Pal account and have credit in it, your so-called friend could clean it out.
"Effectively, they have become an electronic version of you, can change all your passwords and begin stealing from you.
SO FRIENDS, BE SOCIAL DOESN'T MEAN BE FOOLISH!!!
BEWARE, BEWARE, BEWARE !
