CIFAS coffee stunt shows us dangers of sharing our online data
Online identity theft is on the rise, and is rapidly becoming one of the fastest growing crimes in the United Kingdom.
As a result protecting your personal data is now more important than ever, with such a wealth of services and social channels becoming breeding grounds for criminals seeking to capitalise on our private information.
CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service have produced a video set in our favourite haunt — the coffee shop — to highlight just how easy it is to access a wealth of our personal information online…
With just a simple ‘like’ of a Facebook page, CIFAS were able to work out a wealth of personal information via searching and accessing personal social media channels, websites and online records.
The video really highlights the areas that potential fraudsters can access to be used against us with such a wealth of personal info readily available to almost anyone.
In 2015, just under 24,000 (23,959) under-30s were victims of identity fraud. With this type of crime increasing by double since 2010.
Although a very blunt way of showing the risks and dangers of online fraud, this type of stunt is a great way to highlight areas in which we can strengthen our online security.
One of the most common ways in which identity theft occurs is through email phishing, this type of email tries to trick you into parting with personal information by pretending to be from a trustworthy source.
Most phishing emails include a link to a website that looks and feels genuine, but sometimes will include signs such as a strange URL or incorrect or non-up-to-date information. Then by signing in through these sites you will have given away valuable usernames and passwords.
It is important to avoid giving out your address and date of birth where possible, as these can give criminals even more options to commit fraud.
We recommend changing passwords often, and using non-standard characters such as symbols (eg. $, &, @…) and not using common phrases.
CIFAS have produced a Protecting Yourself Online guide in collaboration with Leeds Building Society.