It’s pretty commonplace for most people and even businesses to have their own Facebook page these days. I, for one, can attest to sitting down with a client, who I otherwise would have never suspected of being interested or even aware of the social networking landscape, and being surprised when they say they’ve become addicted. It’s very easy to get sucked into the “who’s who” of the online popularity contest, sometimes even more so when it comes to businesses. That’s why it’s becoming paramount that one understands the risks involved and the types of social media tricks that pose a threat to you and your business. To kick off this series of bot-busting lessons in internet safety, we’ll start with the most common and easiest to spot violation of your precious privacy; the Facebook Fakeout aka the fake friend.

No, we’re not talking about people who give you the stink eye at meetings then want to be friends online just to keep tabs on you, we’re talking about fake as in “this dude doesn’t even exist” fake. They’re pretty easy to spot, but if you typically get excited to have a new friend irregardless of whether or not you actually know them, allowing them access to your information by adding them as a friend could be harmful to you AS WELL AS everyone you’re friends with.

OMG I has a new friend!... wait a second...

Right off the bat, the profile looks normal right? Take a second and examine the content. OK, so a few people have decided to be friends with this guy, but they haven’t said anything to him and he hasn’t posted anything yet. Whatever, he’s busy adding friends! Or is he? This is a classic example of a bot creating a profile and asking to be friends with random people that this particular bot has aggregated information on. One of your friends from college could have added the wrong friend and now that bot has access to information about their college experience and their college friends. That just so happens to be me in this case. Some of the people that this bot has befriended also have connections to some of my college friends, although I don’t know a single one of this bot’s friends directly. Be sure to check out the friends that have accepted the request, that way you can start to see a pattern of where the connection to you and this *person* is.

It’s our lucky day, it appears that this guy is single! Watch out ladies, this guy is gonna be hitting the virtual town with that awesome haircut – which, by the way, looks far too much like stock photography for my tastes. Studies have shown that most people will be interested in clicking on a profile and adding a friend just based on their relationship status and the appearance of their profile picture. “Sweet! This really hot chick of whom I have never met or heard of in my life just Facebooked me. And she’s single!” Getting the picture?

The moral of the story is simple. Don’t be friends with just anyone that comes along. The threats to your information security are vast out there, and nobody is going to keep it safe for you. It’s up to you to stay on top of the trends as more and more of everyday life becomes digital. Do some investigative work. How does this person know you? Is there any suspicious activity in this profile? What motive does this person have to tell me that they’re single right out of the gate? Once you start looking deeper, you’ll be able to spot a fake a mile away.