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Social Networking has become a major part of our web experience these days. First, you will meet on those big sites lots of new people (friends) and you can relate to each others in many ways: sharing photos, blogs, statuses and more. Lots of computer’s users all over the world do use everyday social network sites like Facebook, MySpace or Twitter. Everyday, more and more computer’s users are joining those networks that are already counting millions of users. Because of such popularity, all those sites are being used by cybercriminals. Those bad people will try many ways to spread viruses, steal people’s personal infos and to do online crime. This is due to the fact that users generally trust social networking websites a hundred percent.

To protect your personal data and your computer system from fraudulent activities that might occur on those social networks is very important for any social network’s user, including yourself. A strong advantage that many PC users do enjoy is the fact that professional security systems can protect and monitor your PC while you are actually using it. This is one of the generic principles found in those systems.

Others methods than the ones we just talked about are needed because social websites can be a dangerous place for many people so we will talk about manual methods to use. You can do this with the following steps:

·    Carefully consider what information you are publishing online – Anything like pictures or videos or personal infos that might compromise you after should not be published. Photos and videos that demean you as a person are also not recommended.

·    Be prudent about all your new online friends – Be sure that those people you do connect to on such social websites are also the ones you would associate with in real life. Do not add friends just because you want many of them. Some might turn out to be hackers or psychopathic stalkers. Those people should not be part of your online friends lists.

·    Not everyone on the social network should be able to see your infos – You should be aware some options on those networks do allow friends of your friends to see your infos, unless you block them from being able to. Only your online friends should be able to see your profile. You should block it from other people.

·    Unverified messages containing instructions should not be obeyed neither replied to – Cyber criminals will send messages with some spyware as attachments. You might believe those messages are coming from the development team on your social network, while in fact they are not. Be careful if you are being told by such a message to install (after downloading) any application. This is more often than not an attempt by a malware developer to install a malware application on your computer.
·    If you’re planning vacations, don’t write publicly about it on your profile.  This makes your home and valuables an easy target for those who wish to do you harm.

Following a set of principles when using social networking helps ensure your safety online, as well as providing a helpful hand in stopping the propagation of cyber crimes. This way, you will help others social networks users and the whole experience of everyone will be a great one.