Previously when we?ve talked about online crime it?s generally been a fairly separate world to ?real world? crimes such as mugging and burglary, even if the resulting loss of identity and money means the result is very similar. However, smart burglars are now using the internet as a means to ?shop? for potential victims in a new crime wave that?s aimed squarely towards social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Specifically, these criminals are preying on the level of information shared on these sites in order to find out when people are going to be away from home.

Just fewer than 9 million people in the UK are now members of Facebook, which is fast becoming the world?s largest social networking site. Facebook has also attracted many more people outside of the standard 18-24 age bracket for social networking, while rival network Twitter attracts a younger crowd of around 2 million Brits.

A new study entitled ?The Digital Criminal? has been published by ex-burglar Michael Fraser for Insurance company Legal & General, and suggests that over a third of users are incredibly lax when it comes to giving out personal information via social networking sites. These people will often discuss extended trips away from home or holiday plans in great detail while keeping their address, birthdates and over personal information available within the same profile.

?I call it ?internet shopping for burglars?,? Says Fraser. ?It is incredibly easy to use social networking sites to target people, and then scope out more information on their actual home using other internet sites like Google Street View, all from the comfort of the sofa.?

The younger age bracket is lax with security, leading to student flatshares and households with teenagers being put at high risk as likely to suffer as victims from this new form of crime. Despite this, nearly half of the people surveyed in the report felt that they had anything to worry about, and had no concerns at all from sharing information on such websites.

This report follows recent news of a man who was stabbed in the heart after responding to an online car advert on the classifieds website Gumtree. The man had travelled to East London with ?5,000 in order to buy a new car when he was ambushed, stabbed and the money stolen.

Here are a few ways to protect your identity using social networking sites:

? Investigate the websites privacy settings and ensure that all the relevant options are ticked. Set up your profiles so that they can only be viewed by your friends, but remember this will only protect you so far as you know and trust the people who are friends with online.
? Avoiding posting a huge amount of personal information that can be used to commit ID fraud against you. This includes unique details such as your address, birthday and work history. If you do add information to your profile, make it vague enough to make it uniquely identifiable to you.
? Only become friends with people you know from real life and treat all emails and messages from people you don?t know as suspicious.

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Despite the credit crunch, there are many things you can still buy for 50 pence. A can of drink, a chocolate bar, a newspaper. However, there are several more sinister things 50p can gain you in the right circles – a person’s complete identity including their name, where they live, when they were born and their credit card details.

The shock news comes from research carried out by internet security firm Symantec and shows that online fraud is still a massive problem despite the legal economy still suffering from recession.

Symantec’s Chief Scientist, Guy Bunker reported: “This recession-proof underground economy is reaching such a level of growth and maturity that there are signs of a price war developing, as online criminals find it increasingly easy to steal private details, and barter to sell them for bargain prices.”

Details are stolen through a variety of online methods. One of the most popular are ‘phishing’ websites, which have similar names and designs to official pages – such as banks – but are actually just smoke screens for criminals to steal personal data. Viruses such as worms or trojans are also common, recording all keystrokes and feeding them back to hackers in chat rooms who can then use the details to logon to services such as internet banking.

The low prices show just how much competition there is in underground communities to steal data. Countries such as India and Brazil are likely candidates for intelligent young hackers to find details and sell them on for prices ranging from 40p to over £600 for full bank details. Prices vary based on the quality of the accounts in question.

Despite these claims, millions of people use their credit card on the internet every day without any harm. Using the right precautions, it’s not difficult for most people to remain safe online. Make sure the sites you are viewing are genuine and update your antivirus software as regularly as possible.

©2010 MoneyBlog. All Rights Reserved.