Taking a Facebook quiz may seem like a harmless way to pass the time, but it could also give scammers your personal information. These seemingly harmless surveys that fill your feed could end up giving corrupt hackers the answers to your online security questions.
Social Media Quizzes and Online Safety Don’t go Hand-in-Hand
You see a fun quiz some social media platform and think, what’s the harm in playing along, right? You answer a few questions and prove how well you know a move. Or you take a short personality test to match with a character from your favorite TV show. Whatever the case may be, the answers you provide in these quizzes and surveys can impact your online safety.
Whether you end up providing the name of your pet or your birth city, many of the questions of these games are similar—if not identical—to security questions used by banks and other institutions. You may be giving out the answers to your security questions without realizing it.
Hackers can use these answers to build a profile and hack into your accounts or open lines of credit. They can also trick you into clicking on malicious links.
Tips to Avoid Social Media Scams
• Adjust privacy settings: Review account’s privacy settings and be conservative about what information you share and who you’re sharing it with.
• Remove personal information from your profile: Avoid sharing your phone number or home address on social media accounts.
• Be skeptical: Before you take a Facebook quiz or social media survey, figure out who created it. Is it a trusted brand? Just because something appears to be innocent and fun doesn’t make it safe.
• Don’t provide the answers that may match your security answers: Be cautious if the questions in a quiz ask for your mother’s maiden name, street you grew up on, or the name of your high school.
Experts say it’s okay to take part in the occasional quiz, but for the sake of online safety, you should never reveal certain personal facts. Only take part in those shared by respected websites, and be wary of those that ask for your email address or phone number.
