Just another Technology weblog

Social networking sites are making headlines on a daily basis for everything from privacy issues to historic outages and are poised to reach staggering new heights of popularity.

Social networking sites combine two factors that make for an ideal target for online criminal activity: a massive number of users and a high level of trust. Cyber-criminals exploit such trusted environments to steal confidential information for financial gain. Cybercriminals also use messages or vulnerabilities in third party applications to get you to personal information. Some threats that spread through third-party applications include tracking cookies, viruses and rogue applications. Since these links appear to be posted by a trusted source, these attacks are very successful. People are not who they say they are on social networking sites.

The Human Impact, over half of Indians have lied about person al details online and one in three have faked identities online. With an online identity stolen every three seconds, cybercriminals can easily create fake accounts for familiar faces.

There are plenty of web­sites offering cheat tools for “social games.” Often, the only thing these end up doing is stealing your passwords and other private information. Some allow access to all the information in your account and even post updates on your friends’ walls without your knowledge!

Furthermore, since users reveal significant private information on these sites, cybercriminals can lever age social engineering techniques to further deceive users. For example, the highly prevalent Koobface worm abuses social networking websites and employs search engine optimization techniques to lure victims to malicious sites. Another recent attack involved a fake survey seeking users’ opinions on a social networking site in exchange for gifts. Upon completion of the survey however, the user was redirected to a page that sought personal information in order to receive the gift.

Alternatively, cybercriminals can also use spoofed social networking pages with links to a false down load that requires users to enter confidential information.

Here are some tips to stay safe while networking

• Avoid giving out too many personal details.
• Make sure you read, understand and set your account and privacy settings.
• Make sure the URL belongs to the social net­working brand.
• Type the domain name of the website directly into your browser’s address bar rather than following any link.
• Invest in comprehensive, up-to-date and paid security software which includes tools that identify unsafe links on social networking sites. These tools are even available for free online -they scan your news feed to help you easily see which links are safe and which are risky.
• Watch what you post. Since a digital imprint lasts forever, remember that what you say on your site about yourself or others -may become public and can often be nearly impossible to remove.

Sources: Norton cyber criminal’s report: The Human Impact,  inputs provided by my mate Gaurav Kanwal (CSM, India for consumer products and solutions, Symantec)