Those fun, seemingly innocent Facebook quizzes may be setting you up to be hacked, cyber experts warn.
The quizzes sometimes ask for personal information in order to generate things such as your "porn name," or "NASCAR" name.
One quiz 10News saw online asked for the street you grew up on and the name of your first pet. The combined answers made up a person's "porn name." However, the answers to both questions are common security questions online. Many might even use those answers as passwords.
In the quiz that offers a NASCAR name - you're asked to put in the middle names of both of your parents. Those are also answers to common security questions online.
“What we think is happening in some cases is that there are criminals putting quizzes on there to harvest information,” Stephen Cobb, an ESET Sr. Security Researcher, said.
Your bank and credit card companies may ask you these security questions if you forget your username or password.
All a hacker needs are your email address and the answers to your security questions.
“If the answer is something you’ve used as a security question on another account, that’s bad,” Cobb said.
“The criminals have figured out, using automated programs, how to harvest information about individuals and then use that against accounts you may have,” Cobb said.
The best way to avoid this tricky trap - is to lie. Not on the quizzes, but on your security questions.
“There’s a whole school of thought for security questions for online accounts is that you shouldn’t use real answers. You should use fake answers,” Cobb said.
