Social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace allow you to reconnect with old friends, make new ones and share ideas or the events of your life online. However, the ease with which people can obtain the personal information you make available can be cause for security concerns. If you use social networking sites, you can protect yourself by following these few simple guidelines.

Limit your personal information
Be wary of making too much personal information available. Online banking and e-commerce sites frequently use “challenge questions” to help you recover a forgotten password, or for other security purposes. Often, your online profile will contain enough information to answer these questions. If a hacker has access to this information, he may be able to break into your online banking account. In fact, some online quizzes are nothing more than veiled attempts to gather answers to challenge questions.

Use privacy settings to restrict who can access your information …
Most social networking websites provide a way to limit what information is available and who can see it. Familiarize yourself with how the privacy settings work, and set them to limit your exposure as much as possible. If your social networking website has no privacy settings, consider taking your online socializing elsewhere.

… but don't rely on them
While e-commerce websites are held to a higher security standard than most other websites, social networking sites have a spotty track record when it comes to protecting personal information. Even if your favorite website provides privacy settings, it may not enforce them as well as advertised.

Vary your passwords
Use different passwords for social networking websites than you do for e-mail, e-commerce and financial websites. Ideally, you should use a different password on each website.

Know who you are “friending”
Consider refusing friend requests from people you don't know. They may be interested in more than your friendship.

Beware of clicking on links
Links sent in messages sometimes lead to websites that distribute malware. Consider the source of the message. Is it from someone who never sends you messages? Does the message sound like something your friend would send? If it looks suspicious, ask your friend if they really sent it. If they didn't, their computer may be infected with malware, which may have automatically sent you the message.

Talk to your kids about security
If you have children, talk to them frequently about how to remain safe online.