Identity Theft via Social Media | Lauren Huston

by Lauren Huston on August 31, 2011

For the past several years, my Mom, Barbara Huston,?has been marketing pre-paid legal policies and identity theft protection and restoration plans. She is very passionate about what she does and I have really enjoyed watching the transformations that she has been making since she entered the business. During the past few years, she has learned a lot about the various types of identity theft and she stays current on the industry that tries to prevent it. She is extremely skilled and savvy at explaining what she does so that other people become inspired to protect themselves.

Over time, my Mom has also started embracing social media as part of marketing her business. She opened a Twitter account and has a Facebook fan page that she updates regularly. Naturally, I encourage you all to take a look at them. She checks her Google Alerts daily and keeps up to date on issues related to providing everyone affordable access to the justice system and keeping people safe from identity theft.

My Mom is always on the look-out for identity threats and, clearly, social media is one of them. People put out a lot of information on different social media networks and this could affect the likelihood of our identity being stolen. Many of you may not know this but I found this particular tidbit of information that my mother shared to be particularly alarming: If your identity is stolen once, you are at a higher risk for it happening again.

As I have a strong interest in all things related to social media, I had a recent conversation with my mother about decreasing identity theft via social media. She was happy to offer the following suggestions to all of my readers:

As I look at this list, I can see that I have some areas that could use improvement. While figuring out my passwords would be like getting into Fort Knox, I am guilty of doing such things as leaving my computer on (sometimes for days). I know the privacy settings available on most social networks like the back of my hand (and use them) but I admit that I barely glaze over their privacy policies.

We live in an era where privacy is virtually dead so I do not see this problem going away any time soon. Unfortunately, there will always be people who want to prey on others. I would like you to think about some of the things that I have learned from my mother and see if you can learn from them, as well. Perhaps there are new strategies that you would like to use to protect yourself from identity theft via social media.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Have you ever been a victim of identity theft? What measures do you take to protect your identity online? Let me know in the comments below.

Source: http://laurenhuston.com/identity-theft-via-social-media/

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