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Risks Behind Using Facebook blindly !!

Sun, May 16, 2010

Featured, News, Security

Risks Behind Using Facebook blindly !!

We everyone or most of us must be having our social account on very known world’s number 1 social networking webiste i.e. FACEBOOK. It has evolved so way that now users are sick of using it badly or meanfully. I remember the news which was on top of tech channels that Facebook even challenged GOOGLE directly in means of most visited website in UNITED STATES OF AMERICA for an entire week at a stretch. No doubt, facebook’s growth is phenomenal.

Now the thing of what we should we worried for is security of our and our friends personal contents. However, the site has also lately being receiving lot of excessive criticism for its privacy policies. Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online, claims marketing efforts by the company often results in a compromise on account holders’ privacy, reports CBS News. This makes the scenario more clear.

Some of the risks explained by him are as following.

1. Your information is being shared with third parties.

According to Facebook policy as on April 2010, “When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. … The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.” … Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.”

2. Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign.

In March, private e-mail according to a Gawker report, private email addresses that many Facebook users wanted to keep hidden were revealed publicly on a multitude of Facebook profiles. The glitch was later resolved by Facebook.

3. Facebook ads may contain malware.

Recently, a Facebook event invitation was reportedly sent to some over 2,300 friends of Jim Breyer, Accel Partners venture capitalist who sits on Facebook’s board of directors, asking “Would you like a Facebook phone number?” However, the message was actually a scam and the users who entered their passwords in response to the message in turn sent the whole thing to their friends lists too.

“This was a phishing scam and Jim’s account appears to have been compromised,” read a statement from Facebook as provided to venture industry news site PEHub.

4. Your real friends unknowingly make you vulnerable.
On May 6th, the popular social network patched a major security bug that allowed users to snoop on their friends’ private chats, and view their pending friend requests. The exploit forced Facebook to temporarily disable chat.

5. Scammers are creating fake profiles.

Earlier this week, 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that the site manipulates privacy settings to make users’ personal information available for commercial use. (ANI)

Popularity: 50% [?]

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8 Comments For This Post

  1. Gregory Deiter Says:

    Its really a useful post :) Thanks for sharing

  2. Santo Waitz Says:

    There are websites out there that give you access to private facebook profiles….

  3. Laverne Selvera Says:

    Facebook isn’t as secure as you think it is.. you can still view private facebook pictures.

  4. Philip Carsten Says:

    You know that there are some website out there that let you view private facebook profiles.

  5. Andrew A. Sailer Says:

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