Facebook Warning Message - Do Not Play the 'Place of Birth' Game

A Copy of the Facebook Message:

A SCAM...REPEAT...A SCAM..PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!!!

This has been appearing on the feed all night...Place of birth!!!!!!!!! Everyone please play, it will be interesting to learn where all our FB friends were born. Copy paste and then put where you were born at the end ....DO NOT DO THIS!!! THIS IS ONE OF YOUR SECURITY QUESTIONS FOR YOUR BANK AND CREDIT CARDS!! Also, do not share your first pets name, where you grew up, ect...it's nice to share with your friends, but you are opening yourself up to identity theft and when you post 'innocent little games like this' on your status you are putting your friends in danger...COPY AND PASTE THIS AND PASS IT ON. COPY THIS FROM A FRIEND

Cybercriminals need a lot more than just your place of birth in order to gain access to your bank account or use your credit card to make purchases.

Your online banking account username and password, your credit card number, your name, expiration date, cvv2 number, are the information cybercriminals will need in order to scam you. Asking for your place of birth is just not sufficient.

But, I am not saying that you should give this information out or play the game. Giving out any information about yourself online is not recommended, especially information that can tell where you live, work and play. What I am saying is that the person who started sending out this message does not know much about online banking and credit card scams.

To protect yourself online:

• do not enter your credit card information on websites that you do not know anything about
• only use your credit card on popular and trustworthy websites
• do not complete surveys that ask for your personal information on unknown websites
• watch out for fake or phishing websites.
• do not download software from websites that are not popular and trustworthy; you may download malwares like spyware and Trojan horse that can be used to steal your personal, credit card and other information
• never respond to an email message asking you for your personal information, credit card information or user names and passwords.
• do not open email attachments that you are not expecting from someone.
• do not click on a link to sign into any of your accounts; go directly to the website, by typing the website address in your browser address bar and pressing the "Go" button or the "Enter" key

I do not recommend sharing the message with your friends or family.

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Note: Some of the information in samples on this website may have been impersonated or spoofed.