Courtesy of www.econmatters.com.
By EconMatters
Some people believe it is an urban legend that criminals would actually “analyze” tweets, Facebook updates, and Four Square, etc. to pick their “marks”. Well, these people might want to wake up to the age of digital burglars who know too well how to take advantage of the wealth of information in social media.
Social Times reported that A United Kingdom survey of 50 convicted burglars found that 78% of burglars reported that they believed social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Four Square are useful tools for thieves targeting specific properties while 74% reported that Google Street View was playing a role in home thefts.”
In addition,
“…. four out of five (80%) revealing burglary was not opportunistic, instead returning to a property a number of times before breaking in.”
“According to the burglars, a home robbery takes just over ten minutes to complete, and that it generally takes only two minutes to break into a house with no visible security. Further, the act of burgling remains profitable. On average, burglaries result in gains of roughly 500 British Pounds, taken mostly from cash, jewellery and electronics.”
The article also has some advice from a security expert:
“……taking simple measures, including cutting back trees and shrubs to remove potential hiding places and installing simple alarm systems …. are all good, cost-effective deterrents that all homeowners can implement to remove their home from the target list.”
