Guarding Yourself against Social Media Theft

With the advent and development of new web technologies the online identity of people are getting threatened. A lot of internet users have become concerned about social media identity theft. This can be described as a variant of cyber squatting with the means of the social media sites. It is quite common to come across a social networking site member who has an identical name. While this may be a person with the same name the chances of social media identity theft can not be ruled out totally.

Problems can occur if someone takes your name and registers as a member in these sites before you apply. If the namesake wants to disrupt your life it could be a serious issue. If such a miscreant starts harassing people while using the names of others confusions can occur. They can also try to blackmail people posing as you. The social media identity thieves resort to a combination of social media and email to rob others.

The number of social media sites is only increasing with time. The popular ones are MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. The Social media websites provide the users the choice to give a user name along with the real name. To prevent the chances of online identity theft a person should use his real name both in the profile and in the information section of the sites. Of course a miscreant can use your name with dash or dot but their chances get limited significantly.

It could be hard to protect the social media identity of a person in the recent times when the hackers and malicious people have become smarter. While it can be time consuming and hard, the rewards are high. A person can give his image or CV but it would be advisable not to include his age or birthday. If you set up a free Google alert in your name you will receive an email whenever your name pops up online.

Despite of all these precautionary measures it is likely to come across a person who uses the same name in a social networking site. If that happens, waste no time and get in touch with the site’s administrators. The administrators can take steps to maintain the reputation of the site.

You may take all these steps to protect yourself from online social media identity theft. But even after that you should use Internet security software. If you choose to ignore the social identity thieves they can put you in legal and financial trouble. You can use some useful tricks to thwart identity theft. Do not keep bank statements and loan statements in open. It would be advisable to check your credit report regularly. Refrain from those websites that do not have a security certificate.

To sum up social media identity theft is becoming increasingly common. If you are apprehensive that you might be tricked and your identity can be stolen, then ensure you take the help of professionals to prevent it.