| Internet security makes for big news when it is | | | | reason that you are making things easier for hackers. |
| breached, particularly in the cases of the social | | | | A Ph.D candidate at Berkeley made headlines last |
| networking sites. The big 2; Facebook and MySpace, | | | | year by exposing a hole which had been left in |
| have over 350 million members between them, and it | | | | Facebooks framework. This involved the 3rd party |
| only takes one person to rock the boat. | | | | API and allowed for the easy theft of potentially |
| There is a big deal on both these sites regarding | | | | private information. There are thousands of new and |
| privacy and security, but they are in fact two very | | | | unmonitored applications finding their way on to |
| different issues. If privacy is breached, where private | | | | Facebook every day. These are run by 3rd parties |
| information is accessed without authority, it doesn't | | | | and people who sign up for one thing, say a game for |
| necessarily mean that there are security issues, if | | | | example, find that the application changes and is |
| security is breached however, the results can be | | | | extracting more information than it needs to function. |
| catastrophic. This arises from a hacker gaining access | | | | The security of these sites hasn`t, unfortunately, |
| to the sites private coding or language. This can result | | | | matched their growth in popularity. A great example of |
| is anything from a virus to identity theft. | | | | this is MySpace. Imagine that it is a prison with 50 |
| The most famous, so far, is the Samy worm virus | | | | inmates, 5 years later there are 250 million, yet still only |
| which effectively shut down MySpace in October | | | | the same amount of warders, not great statistics and |
| 2005. Named after its creator, this was a fairly | | | | clearly asking for trouble. |
| harmless malware that proclaimed `Samy is my hero` | | | | Facebook set a great store by their privacy settings, |
| at the top of the homepage of everyone infected by | | | | but these are only any use is the users actually bother |
| it. This was more of an inconvenience than anything | | | | going into their accounts and setting them! There is no |
| else to be honest, as no private information was | | | | automatic privacy on these sites, and this is where a |
| gleaned and no identities stolen. What it did do, | | | | lot of problems start. To protect your self from |
| however, was make the MySpace team realize that | | | | potential breaches, there are a few steps to take. Only |
| their security wasn't anywhere as tight as it should be, | | | | allow access to longstanding and trusted applications, |
| and they quickly addressed the issue. There have | | | | ensure that you set your privacy to high, do not give |
| been no such security breaches since. | | | | any extra information to any application, they don't |
| It is the way that the sites are used which makes | | | | need your address or bank details to let you play on a |
| them vulnerable to breaches. The various applications | | | | farm! When you are chatting with those `friends` who |
| ask for all kinds of information, and if you are a | | | | have added you through applications, tell them nothing, |
| frequent user with lots of friends and numerous | | | | you don`t know who you are talking to! |
| applications accessing your information, it stands to | | | | |