Are you inviting thieves into your home? - asks Peter Clarke from PC PAL
Many of us love to use Facebook and Twitter to tell our friends and family little snippets of our lives and more people are aware of the need to protect against identity theft whilst doing this. But what about actual theft from your home?
Facebook and Twitter users are increasing the risk of being burgled by announcing holiday plans online. An excited comment from your kids/grandkids about the holiday could be all it takes to alert an opportunistic thief that your home is empty, and research has shown that they can track down your address from a website posting within 60 seconds.
How well do you protect yourself from criminals? Here are some tips to help you out.
Privacy tools
This is an important one for Facebook. From your privacy settings page you can manage:
- who sees your updates
- who views your pictures
- what happens when you get tagged in someone else’s photo
- who can message you
- who can post on your timeline and much more
It is important to review the options and keep your personal information between you and the people you want to see it.
Know your friends
Do you really know and trust that person you became Facebook friends with 4 years ago? Don’t add any strangers as friends and clear out the ones that you have already added. Do you really want a stranger that you know nothing about looking through your Facebook albums and reading what you get up to every day?
Personal information
Make sure your phone number and email address can only be seen by friends and make sure your friends are employing these safeguards too.
We also recommend that you make sure your password is strong and changed regularly.
PC PAL would like to wish all of our customers a Happy New Year! – why not make enhanced computer security your New Year’s resolution!
