Almost half of the students between the ages of 17 to 25 polled in Singapore are revealing their full contact details, such as telephone number, home address, the school they attend and date of birth on social networking websites.

The online poll, jointly conducted by Norton from Symantec and Hewlett Packard also revealed that 30 per cent of them were adding strangers to their network as "friends".

120 students participated in the poll, which also revealed

• Half of them spend an average of six hours a day on the Internet.
• Email is the preferred mode of communication among students with online messaging and social networking ranking second and third respectively.
• 92 per cent have registered on at least one social networking website.
• Up to eight per cent of students polled have been victims of identity theft

"While they (referring to students) are getting savvier in online communities, they may not be equally educated on the evolving online risks that they are exposing themselves and their computing devices to," said Ms Serena Yong, General Manager, Personal Systems Groups, HP Singapore.

Social networking sites are becoming especially attractive with cyber attackers because they allow attacks to propagate quickly through a victim's social network.

Attackers are now seeking information, not computers or other devices containing data.

So what can students do to protect their identities?

"Students in Singapore need to be careful who they allow on their network and filter the information published on the site, warned Gavin Lowth, Director, Online Channels, Norton Products & Solutions, APJ, Symantec.

"They should not run programs sent among friends or contacts, without first checking that it is legitimate.

"If the social networking site has privacy options, they should set it at the highest levels.

"On the desktop, they should have a reputable Internet security suite that has browser protection capable of blocking a wide class of web-based threats," he added.