Recent Study Shows Ease of Guessing Social Security Number

July 14, 2009

A recent study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows just how easy it is for those bent on identity theft to access the social security numbers of those who utilize social networking sites.

Researchers were able to use the birthdates and hometown of thousands of site users to determine the first five digits of each individual’s social security number. They had a success rate of 40 percent. The rest of the number could be determined 8.5 percent of the time, with fewer than 1,000 attempts.

Though these percentages may not seem high, the researchers warned that a very smart cyber criminal might be able to figure out an individual’s sensitive information, without ever alerting the individual to any danger. Millions of people use sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter- all of which offer a place for users to enter their birthdates and hometowns.

The study is now prompting many social networking site users to re-think their use of the site and the necessity of sharing such information with the world.