If you are a Twitter user, you've come across direct messages that ask you such questions like "Are you in this video?" or "What's your IQ?" These are malicious viruses that are being spread across the social media networks causing quite a bit of guilt and embarrassment to unsuspecting users.

Another scam that is quite popular on Facebook is the "Western Union scam" wherein friends of users whose accounts have been hacked are approached with long-soppy stories about the user being stuck somewhere and requesting money through Western Union.

So what to do to prevent yourself from falling victim to such viruses and scams?

• First and foremost don't have passwords that are easy to guess. admin123; 12345678; 87654321; and password are just some of the very very very commonly used passwords. Why allow yourself to be vulnerable with a password that can easily be identified by spammers who have use of sophisticated password guessing software? Also, try not to use birth dates, names, and easy to decipher passwords. Create a combination of letters, numbers, and characters that is unique.
   
• Change your password every 30-45 days. It will only take a minute to do so, so make the effort to protect yourself.
   
• Try not to click on any links from anyone whom you don't know. Any information that looks suspicious should be ignored and only trust links that come to you with real information.
   
• Trust no one with your passwords.
   
• Keep an eye on news items that may report on what's happening in the social networks with new viruses or scams so that you can be one step ahead of the scammers and spammers.

Social networks are MORE and MORE susceptible to crooks than any other media to-date. Stay vigilante!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 2:02 am and is filed under Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.