PNP-CIDG gives public tips on how to avoid falling prey to social network hackers

The Philippine National Police-Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (PNP-CIDG) yesterday reminded the public to take extra precautions against potential lawless elements in social networking sites on the Internet due to reports of increasing crime related to it.

These include Facebook, Twitter, Multiply, Friendster, Tumbler, My Space, Friend Finder and Yahoo Messenger.

PNP-CIDG head Chief Supt. Samuel Pagdilao Jr. said in 2010, there were 72 cases related to social networking criminality, including identity theft, hacking, scamming, harassment and estafa.

This year, Pagdilao said 56 cases have been reported so far to the CIDG main office at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame, Quezon City.

Pagdilao advised the public, particularly those with Facebook account, to be careful with their background information.

According to Pagdilao, the Philippines is presently the fifth largest country using Facebook with 20,802,540 users registered, garnering a global audience share of 3.55 percent on the largest social network.

He asked the public to be cautious when clicking links that they receive in messages from their friends on their social website. “Treat links in messages on these sites as you would links in email messages,” he said.

Here are other tips against social network hackers:

• Know what you’ve posted about yourself. A common way that hackers break into financial or other accounts is by clicking the “Forgot your password?” link on the account login page.

• To break into your account, they search for the answers to your security questions, such as your birthday, home town, high school class, or mother’s middle name. If the site allows, make up your own password questions, and don’t draw them from material anyone could find with a quick search.

• Don’t trust that a message is really from who it says it’s from. Hackers can break into accounts and send messages that look like they’re from your friends, but aren’t. If you suspect that a message is fraudulent, use an alternate method to contact your friend to find out. This includes invitations to join new social networks.

• To avoid giving away email addresses of your friends, do not allow social networking services to scan your email address book. When you join a new social network, you might receive an offer to enter your email address and password to find out if your contacts are on the network.

• The site might use this information to send email messages to everyone in your contact list or even everyone you’ve ever sent an email message to with that email address. Social networking sites should explain that they’re going to do this, but some do not. PNA