"Can you name these classic sitcoms with just one picture and a clue?" "What sauce are you?" "Only true Texans can pass this quiz!" The Better Business Bureau recommends holding off on taking these Facebook quizzes, as they might be a big data company mining your personal information.
The recent revelation that Cambridge Analytica allegedly mined personal information from more than 50 million Facebook users may come as a shock, and the BBB is reminding their consumers that online posts can be used for illegal or unethical reasons.
These online quizzes seem innocent and playful enough, but hackers could potentially use this information to access your social accounts and receive your personal information.
According to BBB, scammers aren't the only ones who would want your personal information.
“We always knew someone was trying to trick us with social media quizzes, because they are free,” said BBB’s chief security officer Bill Fanelli, CISSP. “If there is no charge, then the value is the data they can collect. We also knew that it was for a use we probably would not like, because they went to such great lengths to hide their purpose. Now we know we were right on both counts.”
Profile data, quiz answers and more can be used to steal your money or let a scammer pretend to be you in order to steal someone else’s money. And now we know that seemingly innocent information can even be used to build a profile on you that can be sold to anyone trying to influence society.
BBB shared some tips to avoid social media scams:
- Be skeptical. Before you take a quiz, figure out who created it. Is it a brand you trust?
- Adjust privacy settings. Review your social media account’s privacy settings and be strict about what information you share
- Remove personal details from your profile. Don’t share information such as your phone number or home address on social media accounts
- Don't accept friend requests from people you don’t know
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