Facebook Alterations Likely to Expose the Website to Security Threats

BitDefender the security company states that Facebook has made some prominent changes to the website recently to which users have expressed mixed reactions, while the changes themselves may make the website increasingly vulnerable to security hazards.

The company thinks that with the changes, it maybe possible for cyber-criminals to launch increased targeted assaults against Facebook's users.

It also reveals that Facebook is currently "quietly thrusting" Smart Lists i.e. the website is encouraging users as never-before to post details regarding themselves, for instance, their work place which can be documented as also potentially utilized to wage high-level personalized assaults.

BitDefender elaborated that experienced cyber-criminals found out precisely which individual was employed at what organization, the nature of his job as also, more significantly, the scheme/project he was engaged in. And while discussing Facebook, BitDefender was referring to approximately 800m members who due to the cyber-criminals' knowledge were being exposed to the latter's exploits. Essentially, with the knowledge gathered, the cyber-criminals could dispatch personalized spam mails that would appear trustworthy while had more opportunities to victimize end-users.

Meanwhile there's a fresh Twitter-like subscriber utility on Facebook that implies introducing Twitter scams over an extended period-of-time, BitDefender states.

The security company elaborated that Twitter and Facebook assaults were mainly different with respect to Twitter getting flooded with spambots whereas Facebook had several compromised accounts. Having the most recent subscriber utility, spambots could pounce on Facebook as also efforts could be put for obtaining increased subscribers' schemes, the company added.

Another utility BitDefender mooted was the Timeline feature that it described as one probable online threat. The Timeline would be similar to the end-user's profile portfolio enlisting his updates, pictures and friends. Evidently, anyone who wouldn't have configured his privacy settings would have his whole life story exposed owing to Timeline, BitDefender conjectured.

Actually the Open Graph Integration can cause a vital concern with the writers of code trying to capture end-users' Timeline profiles, thus ensuing an enormous leakage for aiding cyber-assaults.

Eventually, while BitDefender thinks exploiters of these fresh utilities will require a little time to use them and cause potential online dangers, the phenomenon can't be ruled out.

Related article: Facebook Users Should be Careful of a Computer Virus

» SPAMfighter News - 10/7/2011