Identity Theft for the Myspace Generation

Posted by: Meredith K. | Dec 14,2007


Have you noticed a lot more spam on Myspace lately?  I have.  My Myspace page was hacked and I only have around 50 friends, nothing that I thought would be the target of spammers.  Everyone on my friend’s list was sent the message, “Want to meet local singles…”  Changed my password and it hasn’t happened since.  The “singles” link went to a Myspace page saying “You have to log in to do that!”  That’s a pretty standard Myspace page, one most every Myspace user has seen (100 million+ people).  Except it’s not a real Myspace page, it’s a web forgery, which will then fish your username and password.  They can then use this info to promote spam ads throughout Myspace.

This prelude is to bring up the issue of identity theft.  I’ve covered here before how younger people think they’re invincible – whether it’s something like drag racing, ala the Fast and the Furious, or using credit cards and building up huge sums of debt.  Younger people also might think they’re a whole lot more web savvy.  They might be struck with the thought that identity theft only happens to older people: senior citizens living at home who are taken advantage of by spammers and identity thieves.  

The preponderance of Myspace spam shows that young people are just as susceptible to identity theft, and the vast majority of people on Myspace are 30 and below.  Make no mistake about it: Myspace log-in fishing is a form of identity theft.  Sure, it only takes an email address and password, but it shows just how easy it is for this to happen.  In addition, many internet surfers use the same password for many different places online, possibly even bank accounts, so this type of fishing could be used for worse types of identity theft.    

Click here for some common identity theft tricks and ways to avoid them.  

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