Study Publisher: BitDefender
Study Date: August 27 2010
Study URL: http://www.bitdefender.com/files/News/file/Social_Networking_and_the_Illusion_of_Anonimity_BT.pdf

Study Overview:
The study sample group included 2,000 users from all over the world registered on one of the most popular social networks. These users were randomly chosen in order to cover different aspects: sex (1,000 females, 1,000 males), age (the sample ranged from 17 to 65 years with a mean age of 27.3 years), professional affiliation, interests etc. The fake test-profile was created to represent a fair-haired 21-year-old woman. In the first step, the users were only requested to add the unknown test profile as their friend, while in the second step several conversations with randomly selected users aimed to determine what kind of details they would disclose. 20 people that accepted the friendship request were invited to have an individual, real-time, written conversation with a person posing as the individual represented by the test profile.

Statistics From This Study:

• People disclose personal information, like that used to answer security questions, to new social networking friends