As you have, I’ve watched these cut-n-paste Facebook status things make the rounds for a long time.

This is probably the worst I’ve seen. This is basically a social engineering checklist.

And because this is Facebook, it aggregates to a public database of potential social engineering victims. Very efficient, very depressing.

A bad actor will leverage this information to gain a victim’s confidence, which could lead to:

an identity theft scenario

a phishing scheme, maybe escalating to…

a workplace-related financial fraud scenario

a ransomware infection

you name it

It’s all bad.

There is nothing to gain by putting this information out there. Please temper any sense of emotional liberation you might feel by sharing this level of intimate personal detail with the hard fact that this is a dangerous, stupid practice that puts yourself at risk.

If you are already well aware of this, please tell your friends who are doing it. It’s reckless and there are better ways to get something off your chest, like having an actual conversation that doesn’t take place on the Internet.

-cp