According to the Nielsen Company, the overall global traffic to social network sites grew nearly 30 percent in one year, from 244.2 million users in February 2009 to 314.5 million users in February 2010. In the United States alone, the average active social network audience grew 22.8 percent, from 115 million to 149 million during that same time period. If social networks are expanding this rapidly, can the growth of associated risks—specifically, data privacy—be far behind?

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Establishing privacy parameters
Privacy is perhaps the most significant concern surrounding the use of online social networking sites. Recently, BBC Mobile reported that consumer confidence in social networking sites has been shaken as issues over privacy concerns have come to light. Results of an RSA 2010 Global Online Consumer Security Survey show that, even as thousands of individuals join social networking websites each day, nearly 65 percent of survey respondents indicated that they are less likely to interact or share information due to growing security concerns. Although most online social networking sites have privacy protections in place that allow users to establish their own level of security settings, online social networks are inherently public, which makes it difficult to secure nonpublic information. But if users are shielding their personal information through security settings, how, then, are hackers able to extract this information and steal their identities? Could the simple act of sharing, friending, or posting make it easier for hackers to attack a social network site and impersonate its users?

Facing incoming threats to social network sites
Corporations that use social networks as communication tools (or corporations whose employees use them without IT's authorization) are faced with significant security and compliance risks. In a survey that FaceTime conducted of IT groups, 14 percent of respondents reported that they've seen data leak through social networks. According to this study, Web 2.0 applications like instant messaging, Skype, and the chat functions within social networks can travel undetected through an organization's network, thus posing the risk that confidential information such as credit card details will leave the organization's control without authorization. Hackers use various means to attack social network sites, including phishing, spam, and malware. Their success is in part due to the trust users place in their networks. The study also notes that users are far more likely to click on a link from a friend on a social network site than in an e-mail.

Using small bits of information to gain entry
Gateway data, a term coined by Herbert Thompson a professor at Columbia University, refers to the confidential information harvested by cybercriminals from social networking sites. According to Thompson and researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, hackers can use such confidential information as someone's mother's maiden name—discovered from a social network site—to answer a challenge question and gain access to the person's account or personal financial data. Users of gateway data can also use these single pieces of information to trick the user into revealing even more sensitive information.

In a 2009 study, researchers from Carnegie Mellon University were able to deduce the Social Security numbers of millions of individuals just by sifting through fragments of data typically shared on social networks and other publicly available sources. Another study, this one by Consumer Reports, found that 52 percent of social network users disclose information that could leave them vulnerable to cybercriminals. Pieces of information such as a mother's maiden name, home address, or home or mobile phone number can lead perpetrators to steal users' identities.

Deterring cybercrime with a healthy dose of skepticism
The global reach and public nature of social networking websites have made them a favored target for online criminals. While consumers enjoy the ease of communication and information sharing on these social networks, these online forums have introduced new and unanticipated risks. Users must take some crucial steps to deter thefts of their identities, included becoming educated in the types of online crime while avoiding such common pitfalls as weak security settings and compulsive information sharing.

A healthy dose of skepticism on what, how much, or with whom to share can go a long way in reducing the exposure of personal, confidential information, because what is shared on the Internet stays on the Internet.

By Ana Cavazos-Wright, senior payments risk analyst in the Retail Payments Risk Forum at the Atlanta Fed