Your Middle Name + First Car is Not Your Porn Name – It’s How You Get Hacked
Do you want to get hacked? This is how you get hacked.
Look, I get it. You see something on Facebook that says "Your Middle Name + Your First Car = Your Porn Name" or some other variation of this equation and your first thought when you put the 2 together in your brain is, "Oh my gosh! That's hilarious!! I need to share mine in the comments too."
Believe me. I've been there. It seems like fun and all your friends are doing it too. In fact, I just saw a post from a Facebook page that literally had over 1.5 million comments on it (and that doesn't count all of the comments on the 71K shares it has received) with people mashing up their middle name with their first car, and yeah some of them really are hilarious, but what are the consequences of leaving a harmless comment like this?
The kind of information you are sharing - your middle name, your first car, the name of your first pet, the street you grew up on or your mother's maiden name - these are all often pieces of information that are used to verify your identity on websites that store important and truly personal information - like your bank accounts, credit cards, and other sites that hold the keys to your sensitive personal (and financial!) information.
Why on Earth would you share this freely, out in the open, where anyone could access it? For people like you and me, we wouldn't even know what to do with the kind of information being shared in comments all across Facebook but to someone whose entire life revolves around hacking into other people's personal information, comments on these kinds of posts are like hanging a banner on your front porch with your PIN number on it in big bold type and a note that you've left your ATM card in the mailbox.
So next time you see a post like this on Facebook or Instagram, enjoy the mental laugh you have over your answer and then just scroll on by, but for crying out loud, stop handing over your personal information all willy-nilly!