Oversharing of information on social media is resulting in money loss

Young people, especially those who are in their mid-20s to 30s are said to be falling prey to fraudsters due to over sharing of their information on social media. Thus, it is leading to account hacks and sometimes money loss from their respective bank accounts.

A survey conducted by Nationwide Building Society in the UK has divulged in its report that 83% of the British people overshare on social media often leading to bank accounts drain.

The survey discovered that more than 4 in ten admitted that one of their friends or they themselves have lost money as a result of a social media hack. They still do not know how the incident took place but admitted that they share important info about themselves online, including their birthday, place or work or their current location.

Although, it might prove trivial for hackers to carve out a user profile from such data, in most cases hackers are able to piece the info together and use it to take over users online accounts and even steal money.

Nowadays, as some shopping websites are allowing to shop with the social media credentials such as Facebook, the situation has deteriorated on a further note- especially those which in lines with Farmville.

Its obvious that social media is proving as a great platform to connect with friends and family members. But at the same time, it’s a fact that some data sharing blunders committed by social networking users are proving gold to hackers.

So, how to isolate yourselves from such online frauds?
•    Remember, no bank or organization will ask you for your pin, password or other credentials- either by a call, SMS or email.
•    Hand over your personal and financial details to entities only which you trust
•    Never click on email links sent from unknown sources or those servers which pretend to be legitimate.
•    If in case, someone approaches you on a manual note to provide credentials, immediately notify the activity to your bank authorities.

Hope, it helps in curbing the online fraud menace!

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Naveen Goud
Naveen Goud is a writer at Cybersecurity Insiders covering topics such as Mergers & Acquisitions, Startups, Cyber Attacks, Cloud Security and Mobile Security

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