How to Protect your self on MySpace.com

Myspace is an online community that has seemingly become a part of modern society. With the incresing popularity comes the increased risk to your personal safety. Here is how you can protect your self and be aware of online predators.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Common Sense, cautious mentality, contstant state of suspicious alertness

1. Try to keep the personal information you provide in your myspace profile to a minimum and as general as possible.

2. Funny images and quotes are great to show people more of your personality but be careful when providing details about where you live, work and go to school. Predators and scammers will gleen as much information as possible from a target before making a move.

3. Be very careful of bulletins posted with embeded content and requests to repost. Often you will be redirected to another page that appears to be a myspace login. If you look closely at the address bar you will find that often it is not myspace you are submitting your login to but another web site entirely. These are know as Phishing sites and are more commonly found in banking fraud and pay pal scams associated with eBay. If submitted the scammers will have your login and password and can begin to infiltrate you personal email and soliciting people on your friends list with similar bulletins.

Tips & Warnings

• Choose a strong and secure password that cannot be guessed easily based on your personal information. Also avoid using any passwords that are similar to your personal email or online banking.
• Be very careful of what you tell other users about your self unless you know them personally out side of the internet or phone.
• Be careful of friend requests from people you don't know in real life. There are bad people out there that will pretend to be younger and a different gender to get close to you. Often one individual will create several accounts and profiles for fake people to target one real person. This creates the illusion that one or all are real. They will back each other up and most likely have a back story of how they all know each other in real life.
• NEVER agree to meet some one you met on myspace. If you feel the need to do so any make sure you meet in a public place and you are accompanied by friends or family you trust.