One in five young people hacked on social media

It’s very easy to over-share on social media nowadays and it seems a fair number of us are being duped into doling out our card details, bank details and private addresses without a second thought.

New research, commissioned by Nationwide Building Society, has revealed that an overwhelming 83% of young people have encountered people over-sharing personal details on social media. Despite this, over a third of young Brits said they haven’t set their social media accounts to fully private, allowing people they don’t know to view their profile.

Fake messages being sent from a hacked friend’s account, transactions made outside of auction sites and scams that see the victim make a payment direct to the fraudster are getting the better of at least one in five (20%) 16 to 25 year olds across the UK. Further, 43% of those who had been hacked, have no idea how their account was hacked in the first place and therefore, don’t know how to fend against it for the future.

Stuart Skinner, Director of Fraud at Nationwide Building Society: “Social media is a great way for people to connect with friends or family, but it’s important to think about the information you are sharing with others. Check privacy settings so that only vetted friends can see updates, don’t give away too much information or anything you wouldn’t want a fraudster to see, have a strong password that doesn’t use any of your personal information and stop and think before sharing.”

Worryingly over half (52%) have saved passwords to their phones, or even their browser (26%). 18% of people give their bank card and PIN to another person and 9% have taken a picture of their card and sent it to someone else via an online method such as WhatsApp, email or messenger services.

Watch our video showing how easy it is to get personal information out of unsuspecting 16 to 25 year olds here.