Social Networks: Facebook Data Security Policy Again Put to Question
- Canadian researchers from the University of British Columbia have been focusing on the possible use of automated tools to retrieve data stored on Facebook and have even manage to invalidate its efforts to prevent the proliferation of fake account 80% of the time. According to these experts, the social network did implement actual measure, yet, they remain insufficient.
- The account creation process is not sophisticated enough to avoid automated attacks and robots are able to provide all the required elements (e-mail, creation of a profile and Captcha verification).
- The robots used by the Canadian team have managed to gather 20% positive responses to their invitations; this rate further increased as the friends of those first targeted also said “yes”.
- This infiltration process made it possible to retrieve and compromise all sorts of information (birth date and place, work place, address, e-mail, phone number, situation as well as other messaging identifiers, etc.).
- Once infected, the profiles may contribute to spread various malware: this again shows that users must be especially cautions and learn to discriminate real from fake invitations.
- Data compromising on social networks is not new; yet, as these players are now positioning themselves on payments they need to pay more attention to these issues. These platforms are particularly suited to fast proliferation of threats (phishing, spam campaigns, adware –fake ads including malware– and other infected links), all the more that users are generally unable to assess the legitimacy of the information they receive.
- Also, these risks are worsened by the availability of these networks via mobile devices: according to comScore, the number of mobile social networking users in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and in the UK increased 44% between 2010 and 2011.
- Facebook even exceeds its own audience record (from 25 to 39 million mobile users).
See comScore press release
Mobile Social Networking Audience Grew 44 Percent Over Past Year in EU5
Mobile Social Networking Audience Grew 44 Percent Over Past Year in EU5