Panic panic panic. First, think of the children. Then think of the implications of them sharing stuff. Oh my god, there are evil people on the web, evil people who don’t exist in the real life, despite the fact that most kids that are abused are directly related to their abusers.
In most cases, Freddi was able to gain access to respondents’ photos of family and friends, information about their likes and dislikes, hobbies, employer details and other personal facts.
Like stuff you see on a blog or normal website so then? Employer details, like LinkedIN so?
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, has this to say about the experiment: “What’s worrying is how easy it was for Freddi to go about his business. He now has enough information to create phishing emails or malware specifically targeted at individual users or businesses, to guess users’ passwords, impersonate them or even stalk them.
“While accepting friend requests is unlikely to result directly in theft, it is an enabler, giving cyber-criminals many of the building blocks they need to spoof identities, to gain access to online user accounts, or potentially, to infiltrate their employers’ computer networks.â€
But am sure they have a security solution they can sell us for all of this. The real danger though is this story in the Indo where civil servants are prying into our data and passing it on to the highest bidder.
The Irish Independent can reveal the brother used the key information, which is held by the Government, to burgle one man and attempt to extort money from three businessmen. The mole worked in the Data Protection Section of the Department of Family and Social Affairs and broke the Official Secrets Act by passing on the details. He later admitted to officials that it is common practice amongst civil servants to check up on the financial status of friends, family and acquaintances.
This is the same department that did this:
Two years ago the Sunday Times revealed that at least 72 civil servants accessed the social welfare details of Dolores McNamara, the EuroMillions lottery winner. The department’s system logged over 125 hits on McNamara’s files after she scooped a €115m jackpot. Her social welfare details were subsequently published by a newspaper.
Why isn’t Sophos warning us about that? Afraid of pissing off those with the purse strings?
The internet touched my special area without asking.
The same thing happens with bank employees, the inter bank account software allow them to look at any account in any branch and across AIB, BOI, NIB and UB. Once they have an address or an account number it is easily done to have the accounts ‘reviewed’, accessing this system is not monitored.
Hi
No, we don’t have a product to sell people that will help protect their identity on Facebook.
We have, however, published free guidelines on our website about how people can set their privacy settings more securely. You can view it at http://www.sophos.com/security/best-practice/facebook.html
BTW, your headline talks about us doing a survey. That’s not accurate – we’re just reporting the announcement from Facebook/NY Attorney General today about how they are trying to tighten protection for young people on the site.
Hope that helps
Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant, Sophos