Kinds of Social Media Identity Theft

Author: Guna Seelan

Author: Guna Seelan

Social Media Identity Theft has become increasingly common now. It is a process of faking of someone elses identity on the internet by foul means. With the increase in popularity of social networking sites it can be said for sure that Social Media Identity Theft has increased. This has subsequently made it too risky for anyone to have their own privacy and security on the internet.

Social Media Identity Theft can be of various types

- The most dangerous form of theft is when someone illegally hacks your online profile and poses to be you in public; however you might have no clue about it. The person can destroy your image as well as mar your identity in public if he wishes to and you will be able to do nothing.

- If a hacker gains access to your personal e-mail account, he can easily get access to all your private information and thus gain entry to all your other accounts. Moreover he will have access to all your bank accounts and funds, and with just one click can manage to rob you.

- Another type of Social Identity Theft is when a person makes a social account as poses to be some eminent personality. The viewers do not have any means to know if the identity is a real one or a fake. And since the social networking sites provide no means of identity verification during the creation of an account, hence it becomes difficult from them to tackle such problems. This is especially common in twitter where many fake accounts of personalities are being made every day. In fact now it has become difficult for the users to distinguish real celebrities from the fake ones.

Experts say that it is very easy to fake an account on the internet as there is little or no safety on these social networking sites. As creating accounts is free and easy and often requires no references, a person can have innumerable accounts and identities on the internet. The person can pose to be someone else on the internet and nobody can trace the user on the other side.

Thus, nowadays Social Networking Sites are becoming stringent about the rules and regulations regarding creation of accounts and are also becoming strict about how they are being used. Nonetheless the rules are not enough to stop hackers from gaining entry into accounts or creating fake accounts.

Safety measures on the Internet

- If you find any such person guilty of faking an account on a Social Networking Site you should immediately report it to the Terms of Service group of the website. The group will then take legal actions against the person if necessary.

- You should be aware of spam on the internet. Do not click on any unknown link in that is sent to your account. Do not accept unknown people as friends in social networking sites. The person might be a hacker trying to gain entry to your account.

- Set Google alerts and register your names and address on it, so that you get instant alerts when you receive mails from them. Otherwise direct them to spam.

- If you feel that your account has been hacked then the best thing you can do is delete your account from the internet. You can cerate another account later.

- Do not go by names and fancy photographs of accounts which assert to be that of celebrities. These can be hackers faking account.About the Author:

The Author of this article says about Social Media Identity. The Author has written many articles on Social Media Identity, Social media marketing and Social Networking. The knowledge of the author about the Social Media Identity is clear from this article.

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