Facebook, Twitter and your bank

Unless you are stashing your savings in mason jars in the backyard you should worry about online security.  If mason jars are your choice you should consider investing in a decent varmint gun and watch out for ground hogs.

Last week I received an email from my bank.  The email was mostly marketing with notes about how much they care about their customers.  There along the bottom of the message were those familiar, colorful icons with the ‘f‘ and ‘t‘ and a few others.  The icons were all linked to various social networking web sites.  By clicking these links I’d be telling my ‘friends’ that I like my bank.  That seems harmless enough.

There’s a problem with saying you like your bank on Facebook.  While you would obviously not post your bank password on Facebook there is a lot of personal information posted there.  Identity thieves mine personal data from social networks like Facebook and Twitter looking for answers to the secret questions that banks ask when you forget your password.  If identity thieves are sifting through your personal data are you helping them by telling what bank to focus their efforts on?

Be careful what you share on the Internet.  Because of the increased connectedness that the Internet brings there are more ways to cause mischief.