Warning advises users not to answer questions about yourself on Facebook posts
A warning is spreading across Facebook that urges readers not to comment on posts asking for details such as your favourite teachers name or your first pet because this is a way “hackers” can obtain the answers to your security questions.
A full version of the warning taken from 2018 can be seen below –
Please be aware of some of the posts you comment on. The posts that ask what was your favorite teachers name, who was your first grade teacher, who was your childhood best friend, your first car, the place you born, your favorite place, your first pet, where did you go on your first flight, Etc…Those are the same questions asked when setting up accounts as security questions. You are giving out the answers to your security questions without realizing it. Hackers are setting these up as a get to know each other better game. They then build a profile of you from several different data sources. They use this data to hack your accounts or open lines of credit in your name.
TLDR: The post offers some good, common sense advice about keeping personal data to yourself. While we’re unaware of any significant campaigns to extract data from victims in the way described in the warning, we don’t recommend needlessly offering up personal information about yourself on the Internet.
Facebook posts that circulate the social networking site asking you to answer a simple set of questions are relatively common. Sometimes they ask you to post your answers in the comments section of a post, while others ask you to copy a set of questions along with your answers into your own post. Most of these seem harmless and just an innocent way of passing a few minutes. For the most part, that is exactly what they are.
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However, for identity thieves, some of these posts could potentially represent a goldmine of information on a person that could be used alongside other information in an attempt to steal their identity. As such, we recommend exercising caution when considering answering questions about yourself in such a way.
This especially includes posts from pages that ask you to comment with your answers, since such posts are visible to anyone. (Posts that ask you to copy questions and answers to your own status at least have the benefit of only being visible to friends, assuming you have the correct privacy settings on your timeline applied.) Either way, we never really recommend answering personal questions about yourself just for the benefit of these types of “games” or memes.
Identity thieves can try and extract information from you in a variety of different ways in a bid to steal your identity. This can potentially include rooting out the answers for “secret questions” on social media as alluded to in the warning above, but perhaps more commonly for other nefarious purposes such as opening accounts in your name (secret questions are quickly becoming out-dated, replaced by more advanced security features such as two-factor authentication.) Given this fact, we see little point in making any easier for them by needlessly publishing information about yourself on the Internet.
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