Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Post Pics Of Your Senior Or Your Mom On Facebook

Because most of the country is under stay-at-home orders because of the coronavirus, there are a lot of people who have nothing but tons of time on their hands. You're probably doing way more surfing online than you ever have because there is nothing else to do. Unfortunately, scammers also have nothing but time on their hands and they are working overtime to steal your personal information.

You've probably noticed a ton of Facebook quizzes and posts asking you to share a picture of your graduating high school senior. There are posts that ask you to share your favorite picture of your mom to flood social media with positive not negative images. There are also posts that have you post your graduation photo and year you graduated because graduations are postponed so let's all take a trip down memory lane. How about the quizzes that keep showing up on your timeline? What Kind Of Car Are You and Can We Guess Your Favorite Movie Star are just two that showed up on my timeline today.

Here's why you don't want to take those quizzes or post those photos or share the posts. They are scams. Here's how they work:

1. Personal questions - What's your favorite color room? What's your favorite show to binge? If you could choose one car to drive for the rest of your life what would it be? All those questions can be used to guess your password.

2. Your mom - Password protection questions often ask for your mom's first name or maiden name and chances are you're going to way overshare information when you post her picture.

3. Graduation photos - Lots of password protection software asks for the year you graduated, the name of your high school, or your high school mascot. You'll probably share all that when you post that graduation picture as well.

The bottom line is right now we are very vulnerable to anything that makes us feel connected with others because we are so isolated at home. The best thing to be is aware and wary of the kind of answers to questions you are putting out there.