New Facebook privacy-related information
Apr 25, 2010 22:11:03 GMT
Post by CharlieChomper on Apr 25, 2010 22:11:03 GMT
There are a couple of new articles that were just posted today actually concerning privacy matters on Facebook--both of very different sorts. One of them, I would hope doesn't apply to anyone here for what will become obvious reasons. Whereas the other appears to affect all Facebook users--and is not something someone can just opt out of.
The first article involves a Russian data thief/cyber-criminal who managed to illegally gain access to numerous accounts on Facebook (without many of the users being aware of that fact) and is now selling that information, along with names and any details entered into an account (again, without the owners being aware of this--or that someone had even been in their account to begin with) to the more maliciously-minded out there--so far, it's been claimed he's sold as many as 700,000 Facebook accounts. His pricing seems to be determined by the number of friends a given account has (the more friends, the higher the price). At present, he appears to be selling over 100,000 accounts he's gained access to.
However, while gaining access to one's Facebook account on its own may seem bad (or some might argue they've nothing there worth stealing), part of the problem has been not just who has been purchasing that information and access, but what they're doing with it. As it's being used as a means to gain access to a user's bank account information (based, in part, upon what a user happens to have in their Facebook account as far as any information entered in is concerned).
One theory is that he (or others out there) may be using an old method often used by spammers of sending along a link via a message that appears to be coming from a friend (under the guise of it being a supposedly "cool link" or something), which in turn may contain some form of malware or "cookie grabbers" that go about gaining that access. Part of the problem has been that these messages do appear to be legitimately coming from people's actual friends on that site.
However, partly because of the popularity of Facebook and the nature of the information that some users may enter into it, it's become an increasingly popular target amongst cyber-criminals.
The second item actually comes from a blog posting by a highly-respected non-profit organization.
It mainly goes into how Facebook had promised that users would have complete control into determining who can see or set certain privacy settings and what's shown versus what's hidden--and how they've now since revoked that and made that public (and clarified Facebook's recent announcement on this), as well as just mentioning in how the situation is and why it's an issue.
The first article involves a Russian data thief/cyber-criminal who managed to illegally gain access to numerous accounts on Facebook (without many of the users being aware of that fact) and is now selling that information, along with names and any details entered into an account (again, without the owners being aware of this--or that someone had even been in their account to begin with) to the more maliciously-minded out there--so far, it's been claimed he's sold as many as 700,000 Facebook accounts. His pricing seems to be determined by the number of friends a given account has (the more friends, the higher the price). At present, he appears to be selling over 100,000 accounts he's gained access to.
However, while gaining access to one's Facebook account on its own may seem bad (or some might argue they've nothing there worth stealing), part of the problem has been not just who has been purchasing that information and access, but what they're doing with it. As it's being used as a means to gain access to a user's bank account information (based, in part, upon what a user happens to have in their Facebook account as far as any information entered in is concerned).
One theory is that he (or others out there) may be using an old method often used by spammers of sending along a link via a message that appears to be coming from a friend (under the guise of it being a supposedly "cool link" or something), which in turn may contain some form of malware or "cookie grabbers" that go about gaining that access. Part of the problem has been that these messages do appear to be legitimately coming from people's actual friends on that site.
However, partly because of the popularity of Facebook and the nature of the information that some users may enter into it, it's become an increasingly popular target amongst cyber-criminals.
The second item actually comes from a blog posting by a highly-respected non-profit organization.
It mainly goes into how Facebook had promised that users would have complete control into determining who can see or set certain privacy settings and what's shown versus what's hidden--and how they've now since revoked that and made that public (and clarified Facebook's recent announcement on this), as well as just mentioning in how the situation is and why it's an issue.
