The Hidden Dangers of Facebook Quizzes & Challenges

Apr 17, 2020 | Alerts, Security, Social Media

Facebook-quizzes

We’ve recently seen an increase in ‘challenges’ and ‘questionnaires’ on Facebook where users copy and paste content from their friends or family and change their answers to their own. A few recent posts that we’ve seen look something like this:

Who Are You challenge?

I want to see your answers! I find out something new about you.
1) Brothers –
2) Sisters –
3) Children –
4)surgeries –
5) Tattoos –
6) Piercings –
7) Been to an island-
8) Favorite colors –
9) Favorite sport –
10)Favorite fruit –
11)Favorite dog –
12)Ridden a Motorcycle –
14)Favorite season –
15)Favorite holiday-
16)Stayed in a hospital-
17)Eye Color-
18)Last phone call –
19)Coffee –
20)Favorite pie-

Car Challenge

“The aim of this exercise is to Google the cars you have owned throughout your life. You must find and name the make, model and colors, then post photos in chronological order on your wall! Make sure to share to your wall so your friends and family can play!”
 

Relative Challenge

I was born a …………
My mother was a …….
Her mother was a …..
My father was a …..
His mother was a …….
And now I am a …….
Let’s see how many can do this. Who knows? We may find relatives!
 

As innocent as these quizzes are, what you are ultimately doing is sharing information about yourself that could help hackers and cybercriminals gain access to your personal information. Common security questions such as ‘what was your first car’, or ‘what is your mother’s maiden name’ are used to protect everything from email accounts to banking applications. These types of posts are promoting and encouraging users to share personal information about themselves and if they land in the wrong hands could be extremely detrimental.

Another challenge that is going around is asking users to share their high school senior picture to support the Class of 2020. The Better Business Bureau put out a news article asking users not to participate in this challenge stating that by sharing your high school senior photo, along with your school name and graduation year, you are allowing scammers and hackers access to your sensitive information. High school names and graduation years are common security questions and by sharing this information you could be vulnerable to cyberattacks. 

As a majority of us continue to be cooped up inside due to COVID-19, we encourage you to not participate in these types of challenges and quizzes and keep all personal information private. 

GraVoc offers Information Security services to help keep organizations secure and to help keep employees up-to-date on the latest cyberthreats that are out there. Should you have any concerns about the cybersecurity of your business, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our Information Security consultants. 

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