Criminals can buy your Facebook login details on the dark web for as little as £3, a new study has revealed.
The study, by experts from Money Guru, revealed that Facebook logins can be bought for £3, while email logins sell for as little as £2.10.
The experts analysed the value of logins for 26 of the most commonly used accounts available on the dark web.
Shockingly, the analysis revealed that you can purchase the majority of someone’s online life for just £744.30.
This includes your usernames, passwords, email addresses and any personal details associated with your account including name, address and phone numbers.
Buying social media accounts were found to be some of the cheapest options.
In a blog about the research, Money Guru said: “There are few better ways to gain insight into someone’s life than their social media accounts.
“These details are frequently stolen to sell to companies with little scruples about targeted advertising.
“It’s also a fast track to identity theft as they can take control of your accounts, lock you out and cause serious reputational damage in a short space of time.”
How to protect your accounts
The secret to keeping your accounts out of other people’s hands is multiple verifications.
Getting a notification every time someone new logs into your account means you can ensure someone else isn’t using your details.
Couple that with two-step verification on key accounts – where a text is sent so you can’t login from a new machine without it – and you’re making a criminal’s life an awful lot harder.
And while there’s nothing you can do about a hack that exposes user’s details, you can make sure that a single hack doesn’t compromise all your accounts at once by using unique passwords or handing details to fraudsters yourself by never sharing logins.
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