Have you ever Googled your name? If you have, even once, welcome to the Vanity Search Club. Ego-surfing or vanity search is not really classified as narcissistic, but if you do tend to get carried away by curiosity to find out about your presence in the virtual world, you're likely to be a sitting duck for predators waiting just for people like you.

There is a funny animal called Twitter. It has the potential to lead you to great information sources or dump you in a pool of muck. There are ‘tweeples ‘and apps just waiting for your ego-driven click to take you and your friends on a ride you will regret till you are able to set things right again.

We are always concerned about what others say about us, and there are guys who know you'll be curious if they say: “Hey...you seen this yet? http://***** there are some horrible rumours about you online...” or “Hey, so some real nasty things are being said about you here http://****** ” or “ROFLMAO I can't stop laughing at this pic of you”. These messages often come as direct messages from one of your Twitter friends.

If you are logged in to your Twitter account, and decide to find out what others are “saying about you”, it means you have successfully bitten the bait. You will end up downloading malware or a virus. There are some links that will take you to an app that will ask you to ‘authorise' it to “post on your behalf”. Once you download the malware or authorise the app, the same or similar messages will be posted on your friends' timeline from your account.

It is easy to avoid getting caught in such traps. Ensure you have a good anti-virus with malware detection capabilities installed. Or better still, ignore the links. It's better not to be curious.

>dinakaran@thehindu.co.in

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