4 Scary Ways Your Personal Information Is Being Used

Being proactive in protecting one’s personal information online is essential. Hackers have sophisticated methods of hacking into accounts and wiping your financial accounts clean. If you are not careful about the information that you reveal on the Internet, then you may find that you are the victim of a fraud scheme one day. One of the best ways to begin protecting yourself on the Internet is to become educated about the ways in which your personal information is being used online. Here are some of the scariest ways that your personal information is being used on social media websites like Facebook.

1. Mining Facebook Accounts

Unfortunately, hackers are able to easily gather information about people and use it to their advantage. When hackers have access to simple information like a person’s birthday, hometown and educational institution, they are able to typically find out a person’s password. You should never feature this type of information in a password on the Internet. You stand a great risk of having your Facebook account and other accounts hacked. Hackers love to use your personal information to hack into these social networking accounts.

2. Wipe Out Your Credit Card Accounts

Hackers also love to use your personal information in order to wipe out your credit card accounts. The way it works is that hackers will buy and sell your personal information on the black market. This information is sold in large quantities. Hackers will then use your information to hack into a credit card and make large purchases. These large purchases are then shared amongst all of the hackers who invested in purchasing your personal information. There are over 4,000 hacking websites on the Internet that buy and sell personal information. It is important for you to be aware of the information that you have on the Internet at all times.

3. Duplicate Your Identity

Your personal information can be exploited in schemes aimed at duplicating your identity. Hackers may use this information to create fake Facebook or WhatsApp accounts that closely resemble yours, even adding friends from your network. By doing so, a hacker can sift through your friends’ profiles and gather more information about you. Some more ambitious hackers might go a step further and directly contact all your friends. Once they retrieve personal information, hackers can attempt to make unauthorized purchases on the internet using your credit cards or deceive your friends by reaching out with a fake account to scam them.

Read also: How to Hide Your WhatsApp Profile Picture from Specific Contacts

4. Creating Duplicate ATM Cards

Hackers are now able to accept other credit card offers and duplicate ATM cards with the use of personal information on the Internet. Sometimes, a hacker may even be bold and actually submit applications for new credit cards. This gives the hacker an easy way to start using a credit card without you ever realizing it. They may also request additional copies of credit cards or ATM cards from the bank when they have your personal data. After they obtain the ATM card, they will then withdraw all of the funds that you have stored in your checking and savings account.

Conclusion

It is essential for you to invest in an identity protection service and should not take online security for granted. When you sign up for identity protection services, a company will constantly monitor your information to ensure that it is safe on the Internet. They may also monitor all of your credit cards to ensure that no odd charges are being made. If an odd charge is made, the company will immediately contact your credit card company. This will help protect you from having your account completely wiped clean of funds. Now that you know the dangers of the ways in which your personal information is used online, you can do something about it.

Read also: 6 Steps to Prevent Identity Theft