Social Networks Prime Targets for Hacking

Mark Zuckerberg may think privacy is passé, but the millions of people who use his Facebook and other social-networking platforms should take steps to protect themselves against hackers.

Security experts say the openness and ease of social networks is making people let their guard down, exposing them to threats from viruses and worms in 2010, The Miami Herald reported.


Zuckerberg caused a stir last week at the 2009 Crunchies Awards, a tech-fest sponsored by the TechCrunch Web site, by saying that people were sharing more of their private lives online, and that Facebook was merely reflecting that.

“In the last five or six years, blogging has taken off in a huge way. People have really gotten comfortable sharing more information and different kinds but more openly and with more people,” he said, according to Computerworld.

Facebook has angered some of its 350 million worldwide users with recent changes to its privacy terms. It has removed controls on information like user names, where they live, profile pictures, fan pages and friend lists, Kevin Bankston, a senior staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Computerworld.


Dave Marcus, director of security research and communications at McAfee, the computer-security firm, has cautioned users to look out for messages in their inboxes that offer services or seem like they’re from a friend, according to The Herald. Likewise, users should be wary of ads that invite you to click, because they could take you to a site designed to steal sensitive information – or that of friends in your network. The Koobface worm of 2009 did that, and it mutated into more than 100 strains.

Users have been trained to watch out for dubious e-mails, but seem to be more trusting of links on Facebook and Twitter. The latter service, in particular, uses URL shorteners to save space in its 140-character messages.

“These URL shorteners mean users are getting used to clicking links, not knowing where they are going, and trusting that nothing bad will happen,” The Herald reported.