The virtual world has become widely popular not only among teenagers but also among adults and professionals. Social media may be perceived as a progressive improvement in communication, yet it can leave consumers vulnerable – especially to identity theft. Social media users are at risk of having their photos and personal information stolen sometimes, in a matter of seconds. According to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center, identity theft “occurs when someone appropriates another's personal information without their knowledge to commit theft or fraud”, whether for medical, financial, or criminal use. This crime has surfaced recently but has been an issue long before the Internet came into existence. Previously, identity thieves had to physically intrude on peoples’ conversations and watch them hoping to pick up some private information. For example, they could look over the shoulder of their victim when they were entering their credit card number, a method known as “shoulder surfing” (McAfee). With increased usage of social media, criminals have much more opportunity now to perpetuate fraud online. Social media has unfortunately become a breeding ground for identity thieves since security breaches have become a rising concern, the trust in social platform providers that users have makes them ripe for theft and the anonymity that comes with social media provides identity thieves with cover for their activities.
Social networking sites are becoming even more susceptible to security breaches and that comes with the potential of putting even greater consumers at risk of exposure. The Identity Theft Resource Center (ITRC) defines a security breach as “an incident in which an individual name plus a Social Security number, Driver’s License number, medical record or financial record (credit/debit cards included) is potentially put at risk because of exposure.” It only takes one identity thief to illegally retrieve millions of data points to endanger the privacy of consumers. While social networking sites ensure consumers’ safety, they are not immune to attacks on their technology. Since 2005, the ITRC has been tracking security breaches while looking for patterns that may better help educate consumers on the need to protect personal information. The biggest security breach was reported by the ITRC to be Facebook in which 50 million user accounts were accessed by unknown attackers. Not only did some of these victims suffer costly damages financially, but according to the International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, 70% of them face issues with trying to resolve such things as credit cards being opened fraudulently in their name.
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Social media has given attackers a huge incentive to invade people’s information because of the vast information found in their databases. The more accounts there are on a database, the more victims are vulnerable to identity theft. Therefore, the increased usage of social media and the internet, in general, has made the virtual world exposed to unwanted intruders because virtually anything digital can be accessed online. Social platform providers may not be responsible for these attacks, however, they are guilty of coaxing consumers into oversharing confidential information and then not adequately protecting that information. Consumers’ trust in social platform providers has increased to such an extent that they feel secure enough to expose their name, their personality, and even their location which can lead to extortion and corruption.
Users overshare information online with limited concern for who can see it and this lack of awareness leads to being taken advantage of. Based on personal information, social media sites can also generate revenues with targeted advertising. For this reason, social media platforms encourage users to provide as much detail as possible while offering limited government oversight or protection of privacy. Instagram, for example, compromises the privacy of users in its collection of as much data as possible. According to their Privacy Policy, the data collected includes user-provided information, data on how people use Instagram through cookies, analytics from third parties showing the websites users visit, and access to the user’s contact list. Although the purpose of this data is to improve the effectiveness of the application, the monetary benefit from targeted ads may be the real reason. Either way, these private insights thrill identity thieves.
A study conducted by Bradford Reyns analyzed the context in which users might have been victimized. The results of his study proved that “individuals who use the Internet for banking and emailing are approximately 50 percent more likely to be victims than others” (Reyns). Through Instagram’s collection of data activity, identity thieves, as well as the public, are provided information about a user’s daily activity. Due to the wide range of victims available, identity thieves can opt to target a victim based on their whereabouts and actions. The increased rate of identity theft is partly due to consumers’ trust in social media platform providers and their lack of concern as to who they might be interacting with. Social media allows people to interact with each other on a digital level, but identity thieves abuse the advantage of anonymity that comes with social media by impersonating others. For example, a social media account can be associated with an actual person, an impersonator, or an automated computer that generates random accounts – often referred to as a “bot”. When creating a new account on a social networking site, a criminal can create a fake name, a fake profile picture, and a fake online persona. This takes away the authenticity of all profiles, yet criminals still manage to often infiltrate their victim’s inner circle.
One attack consists of “the automated identity theft of existing user profiles and sending of friend requests to the contacts of the cloned victim. By establishing a friendship relationship with the contacts of a victim, the attacker can access the sensitive personal information provided by them.” (Balzarotti). Social media has expanded the method of identity theft attacks since anyone can create a fake account and manage it from the comfort of their home. Impersonating someone with a close relationship with the victim allows the criminal to even more easily access a substantial amount of the victim’s information. This attack often works because the contacted users trust and accept the friend request. Thus, social media allows perpetrators easier access to private data as they can impersonate people and gather information that way. This is even more dangerous because it means that not only does a victim have to be wary but must also be concerned that their friends will divulge information. Identity theft is a growing crime affecting millions of people a year.
The consequences of these crimes touch the lives of victims, costing them time and money-consuming measures of precautions and identity recovery actions. Identity theft nowadays seems to be a part of social media. The benefits of social media are great, however, hackers, lack of awareness, and placing too much trust in social media platforms are becoming a real issue. What used to be a physical crime has evolved into an online one. Since the introduction of social networking sites, identity theft has increased due to an increase in security breaches, social media platforms misleading consumers about data collection for targeted ads and the overall sense of anonymity found with each social media account.
Works Cited
- Balzarotti, Davide; Bilge, Leyla; Kirda, Engin; Strufe, Thorsten. “All your contacts are belonging to us: automated identity theft attacks on social networks”, April 2009, pp.551-560. https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1526784
- “Data Breaches”. Identity Theft Resource Center. www.idtheftcenter.org/data-breaches/ Accessed January 13, 2019 “Internet Crime Schemes: Identity Theft”. Federal Bureau of Investigation Internet Crime Complaint Center. www.ic3.gov/crimeschemes.aspx#item-9 Accessed January 11, 2019
- Reyns, Bradford W. “Online Routines and Identity Theft Victimization: Further Expanding Routine Activity Theory beyond Direct-Contact Offenses”. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, Vol. 50, November 2011, pp 216-238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427811425539
- Soomro, Tariq Rahim; Irshad, Shareen. “Identity Theft and Social Media”. International Journal of Computer Science and Network Security, Vol.18 No.1, January 2018, pp 43-55. http://paper.ijcsns.org/07_book/201801/20180106.pdf
- “What is Shoulder Surfing?”. McAfee. May 4, 2015. securingtomorrow.mcafee.com/consumer/identity-protection/what-is-shoulder-surfing/ Accessed January 13, 2019
- “What You Need To Know About Instagram’s Privacy Policy”. Identity Guard, June 2018 www.identityguard.com/news-insights/need-know-Instagrams-privacy-policy/ Accessed January 13, 2019
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