The security warning that was delivered at the Black Hat hacker conference claims that Social networking sites have been hijacked by identity thieves and online monkey business individuals.
Whereas this report would make you want to avoid social networking sites altogether, it also warns against taking such action because someone may claim your place.
According to the report, developers who own these social networking sites are causing these problem s by embedding powerful functionality that most subscribers will never use.
A demonstration from Shawn Moyer, chief information security officer at Agura Digital Security, a Web and network security firm highlighted the dangers faced when one uses Social Networking Sites.
From Moyer’s demonstration, its clear that an adversary can use MySpace that user-created applications to hijack and/or lock out accounts, or trick the user into installing malicious software.
The report also warned against not claiming a space on these networks arguing that someone else may do it for you as a way of scamming or attacking your friends and business contacts.
A report presented to Google also highlighted the danger of Google Gadgets to the social networking community. Google Gadgets can be used to create free programs such as calendars or photo feeds that people can add to their personalized Google home pages.
Someone can easily bundle these programs with malware codes and makes it available for download on Google's site.
This can expose a user to malware attacks, phishing and other irregular internet activities.
Google said that they constantly scan all gadgets for malicious code and its immediately blacklisted if found.
The report also warned against too much trust on Social Networking Sites citing a scenario where you trust that clicking on a user's photo or merely reading a message from another reader won't turn your computer into a spam-spewing zombie or cause your page to become a vector for cyber attacks against others. However, its very possible for these things to happen.
Kaspersky Lab is warning of a new worm traversing Facebook and MySpace called Win32.Koobface.Apparently, the work spreads when users click on a link to view a video that prompts the user to install an Adobe Flash browser plug-in. Be very Alert!!
Source Washington post
