Confessions Of A Social Media Junkie: You Should Delete Your Old Accounts!
MySpace Got Hacked! Did they get your details?
I have a little routine of a morning! I grab coffee after stumbling around for a little while, and then settle down to browse and read the news!
It’s a great way to wake up, especially when you have a busy day ahead, and need a bit of time time to wake up before the rest of the household!
This morning though I nearly choked on my coffee as I read this headline from the Brisbane Times!
“Why you should delete the online accounts you don’t use anymore – right now!”
The article said: “As many as 360 million MySpace accounts turned up for sale recently in a 33-gigabyte dump online, according to reports that were confirmed by MySpace’s parent, Time. The leak includes passwords, email addresses and usernames that were swiped from MySpace in a hack dating back to June 2013, before MySpace made a site redesign that closed some security gaps.”
Now I don’t know about you, but I haven’t been on that site for years.
I must admit that I was never really that keen on it, but as I was doing a a lot of writing on social media and “Web 2.0” (remember that?) at the time, I joined MySpace and a host of other social media sites. (At last count I was a member of over 120 sites).
To say that I was startled when I read this would be putting it mildly!
After spending a bit of time scratching around finding old profiles, I set about deleting those that I no longer use.
Some of them have made that process easier by dying out! They just don’t exist anymore!
Why would hackers want my details?
Membership sites do a great job of collecting peoples’ details, from names and email addresses to physical addresses and credit card details.
And photographs – profile pictures, selfies of members, pictures of members and friends, and so on.
So the worst case scenario would be that the end users of these details could be using them for identity theft and fraud.
Or they could use email addresses to go phishing for more details.
Or they could just use them to spam users and try to sell stuff!!
How can I protect myself?
Well, if you were a member of MySpace when it was hacked, it’s just too late!
As far as other sites are concerned though, if you are no longer using them, delete you profile.
Always be careful of what details you share with websites. Do you really know who is behind them? (No, don’t go all paranoid here, just be careful, ok?)
If it’s a paid site, use a service such as PayPal, and link it to a bank account that is for that purpose only, if possible.
Don’t use the same password on multiple sites – use different passwords for different sites.
If possible, use one email account for social accounts such as Facebook, Twitter and so on, and another for business.
Don’t post images of other people without their permission, including your kids. They have rights to privacy too!
The truth about social media sites!
They want to make a profit! Full stop!
That’s why they want people in their millions to sign up.
It’s why sites such as Twitter and Facebook show “sponsored posts”.
And it’s why there are people out there flogging “Social Media Marketing Courses” and “Facebook Secrets” etc.
It’s also why you will often get a friend request from someone, and get bombarded with sales messages from them when you accept!
There’s money to be made there!
They’re not paying for all that hosting and development just to be nice!
They want to be the next Twitter or Facebook success story, and if that fails, they want to be bought out by the giants!
Should I stop using these sites?
Not at all. Just do it with your eyes wide open!
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