Incident Prompts Warning About Social Media Safety
On June 11 at approximately 1:19 p.m., police were contacted after a 14-year-old teen reported becoming the victim of a social media hacker and possible child pornographer. The teen was contacted by a person on the teen’s social media sites by someone the teen thought was a friend. The ‘friend’ asked for the teen’s sign-in information for the purpose of adding friends to the teen’s site. The problem was, this person was not a friend and threatened to send some revealing photos to the teen’s parents if the teen did not take nude photos and provide them. The teen found that other friends had received similar requests, and at least one other had been hacked as well.
Police have taken a report and are also providing this information to prevent victimization of others.
General Safety Tips
- Protect your log-ins.
- Use a secure log-in, which does not contain words, but instead a series of letters, numbers and characters. Think of a phrase you can remember, with some upper case and some lowercase letters, some numbers and some characters.
- Don’t leave your log-ins where people can find them (in a notebook, computer, or on an unlocked device). Find a trusted security app for storing passwords.
- Use a passcode to secure lock your phone when you are not using it.
- Verify friend requests.
- Don’t share intimate photos on social media, as recipients can take screenshots and resend to others.
- Check your mobile phone’s privacy settings and location services on each social media on a regular basis.
- Be careful about allowing a site to provide your location or tag who you are with.
Here are two sites for more information about social media safety:
http://www.netsmartz.org/SocialMedia
http://www.ncpc.org/topics/internet-safety/social-networking-safety
Case 1709465