Bart Patrick

Marlow

Risk Strategy manager, SAS UK

People underestimate just how easy it is for fraudsters to piece together data sources and create a profile of an individual.

Largely criminals are using these sites to directly impersonate individuals. However, organised crime rings also use social networking sites to confirm indentities and information gained from other sources.

The major concern here is people’s willingness to hand over personal information without thinking about the implications.

Individuals really need to start being more aware of these threats before disclosing information. The following steps need to be taken for the public to protect itself when visiting social networking sites:

- Do not issue factually identifying information such as date of birth, address etc. Instead give approximate numbers to describe your profile, e.g ‘I am between 18 and 25’

- Need to treat web users as complete strangers – you wouldn’t give a person you met on the street your address, so why give it to someone online that you’ve never met before?

The financial services industry is working to protect consumers from a business perspective, having spent millions on anti-fraud activity, both electronic and physical. This is compounded by issues surrounding verifying “is this person really who they claim to be” – as the more information a fraudster has the harder this is.

But despite these industrial efforts, it is down to individuals who use these sites to take steps to protect themselves. However, banks and the media need to continue to push the warning messages of the risks of disclosing personal information in the public domain.