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Social Networking

MySpace settles with FTC after misleading users

Marcos Colon May 18, 2012

After being charged by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with sharing its users' personal information, including browsing habits, with advertisers, social networking service MySpace has agreed to settle.

Play nicely with your Facebook friends

David Harley, ESET senior research fellow May 04, 2012

Perhaps Facebook users are beginning to expect more consideration from their friends on social networks.

Twitter sues five over spamming, providing automated tools

Dan Kaplan April 06, 2012

Twitter on Thursday filed a lawsuit against five entities that allegedly provide tools so spammers can tweet unwanted links to legitimate users.

RockYou to pay FTC $250K after breach of 32M passwords

Dan Kaplan March 27, 2012

The FTC seemed most upset with RockYou's failure to protect the personal information of 179,000 children who registered to use the site.

Pinterest's popularity attracts cyber scammers

Dan Kaplan March 14, 2012

And so it begins. The all-the-rage virtual pinboard Pinterest is the latest social networking darling to draw the fancy of cyber swindlers.

Facebook users experience two-hour blackout

Marcos Colon March 07, 2012

Facebook users in Europe experienced a two-hour blackout that the company describes as "technical difficulties."

Facebook sues Adscend Media for malware and spam

Stephen Lawton January 30, 2012

Facebook and the state of Washington have filed separate lawsuits against Adscend Media, alleging the company was responsible for spreading malware and for stealing personal information from Facebook users.

Twitter acquires web malware fighter Dasient

Dan Kaplan January 24, 2012

Twitter, a hotbed of malware due to its extreme popularity, has made one of its first-ever security acquisitions with the purchase of Dasient.

New Ramnit variant steals Facebook logins

Greg Masters January 05, 2012

A new variant of the Ramnit virus harvested the login credentials of more than 45,000 Facebook users worldwide, according to researchers.

Crooks using Zeus in new Facebook attacks

Angela Moscaritolo November 30, 2011

Variants of the Zeus trojan are being used in new Facebook and banking heists, security researchers and law enforcement are warning.

Facebook to alter privacy practices following FTC ruling

Greg Masters November 29, 2011

The Federal Trade Commission has come down hard on Facebook over allegations of "unfair and deceptive" privacy promises, and the social networking behemoth has responded by admitting to its mistakes and appointing two new privacy heads.

Twitter buys Whisper Systems for Android security

Dan Kaplan November 28, 2011

Twitter has acquired a start-up that makes security and management solutions for Android devices.

Cyber Monday to bring increase in online threats

Angela Moscaritolo November 23, 2011

Cyber Monday, the digital equivalent of the brick-and-mortar world's Black Friday, is one of the busiest online shopping days of the year, and typically marks the beginning of a month-long period of increased online threats.

Facebook identifies porn spam perpetrators

Angela Moscaritolo November 18, 2011

The social media giant is "pursuing the appropriate action" against those behind a wave of pornographic content that showed up on users' news feeds this week.

Facebook rolls out application-specific passwords

Dan Kaplan October 28, 2011

Facebook on Thursday introduced two new security features to help users better protect their accounts. The first is the ability to create unique passwords for each application a user accesses. (Normally they only need to enter in their standard Facebook credentials). The new capability allows members to create a password, which they won't have to remember each time they login to the app, by visiting Account Settings>Security>App Passwords. Meanwhile, the "Trusted Friends" feature allows a user to select three to five trusted individuals to serve as custodians of codes that can be used to access one's account if he or she is ever locked out.

Researcher finds way to send executable file on Facebook

Dan Kaplan October 28, 2011

Researchers have discovered a way to evade Facebook security controls to deliver a message that could come outfitted with a malicious attachment.

Common Facebook.com mistypes lead to bots, malware

Dan Kaplan October 26, 2011

In a rush to post a clever status update on Facebook? Be careful, you may enter in the wrong address for the popular social networking site and instead land on a page that can harm your computer.

Microsoft YouTube channel hacked

Angela Moscaritolo October 24, 2011

Hackers over the weekend accessed Microsoft's YouTube channel to swap out videos with their own. It is unclear what the intruders' motive was, but they may have been able to access the account by stealing its login credentials from a Microsoft employee, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus firm Sophos, said in a blog post Sunday. One of the unauthorized videos posted was titled "Bingo" and featured an animated video game character shooting another character. By Monday morning, the channel was operating normally. The incident followed hackers last week taking over the Sesame Street YouTube channel to display pornographic videos.

Podcast: Automating social engineering

Dan Kaplan October 21, 2011

The process of delivering targeted attacks to end-users has gotten easier for attackers thanks to automated social engineering, in which adversaries can write tools that scour the web for personal data to include in their emails to increase their believability. The goal, of course, is to design messages that people are more likely to click on and, as a result, install malware on their machines or divulge personal information. In this podcast, Matias Brutti, a security consultant at security services firm IOActive, explains what the automation of social engineering means for organizations and how they can fight back.

Porn hackers take over "Sesame Street" YouTube station

Dan Kaplan October 17, 2011

The YouTube channel for the long-running television series "Sesame Street" was back operating normally on Monday after hackers briefly gained access to swap out educational videos with X-rated pornography.

Facebook, Websense partner to flag malicious links

Dan Kaplan October 03, 2011

Facebook on Monday began warning users if they are about to visit a malicious URL. As part of a partnership with security firm Websense, each time a user clicks on a link within Facebook, the address will be checked against a database of known malicious sites. If the link matches a known bad site, users will be presented with a page that offers the choice of continuing on, returning to the previous screen or learning why the link was classified as suspicious. Cybercriminals have flocked to sites like Facebook in recent years. A new Ponemon Institute survey of more than 4,000 IT and IT security professionals found that 52 percent have faced an increase in malware as a result of social media.

Most businesses lack social media security controls

Angela Moscaritolo September 29, 2011

Just 32 percent of U.S. IT and IT security practitioners said their company has a policy that addresses the acceptable use of social media by employees in the workplace.

USA Today Twitter account hacked by The Script Kiddies

Angela Moscaritolo September 26, 2011

The Twitter account belonging to the USA Today was hacked over the weekend by a group called The Script Kiddies. In tweets posted from the compromised account, the hacktivist group bragged about past hacking feats, and urged users to "like" them on Facebook and vote on who they should infiltrate next. It is unclear how the hackers were able commandeer control of the account. The same group also claimed responsibility earlier this month for hacking the NBC News Twitter account and sending a series of erroneous tweets. In that case, a trojan permitted the takeover.

Facebook has already paid $40,000 for bug finds

Angela Moscaritolo August 30, 2011

Three weeks after launching its vulnerability bounty program, Facebook has awarded one security researcher more than $7,000 for reporting six different issues.

Facebook releases how-to guide to stay protected

Dan Kaplan August 23, 2011

Facebook has released a guide to security. Written in simple-to-understand terms, the 14-page document encourages users to set strong passwords and log out of their accounts when they are finished. It also address common scams on the social networking site, including clickjacking. The handbook suggests users implement enhanced security settings, including secure browsing, one-time passwords and account activity monitoring. In addition, it explains how Facebook members can recover their accounts if they have been compromised.

Anonymous plan to "kill" Facebook may be fake

Dan Kaplan August 10, 2011

One of the more prominent members of the Anonymous hacking movement has shot down reports that the group is planning to take down Facebook on Nov. 5. "Sabu" tweeted Wednesday that the so-called OpFacebook is a hoax. His claim was backed up by AnonOps, considered the most reliable Anonymous news source on Twitter. It is possible splinter members are planning the attack, which is being launched over allegations that Facebook provides information about its users to government agencies and security firms, according to a YouTube video posted in mid-July. The Nov. 5 date is known as Guy Fawkes Day to commemorate the capture of the British revolutionary who plotted to blow up the House of Lords.

Up to 35M South Koreans affected by breach

Dan Kaplan July 28, 2011

The personal data belonging to an astounding 35 million people in South Korea may have been compromised this week when hackers infiltrated SK Communications, which runs the Asian nation's largest social networking site, Cyworld, and third-most trafficked search engine, Nate, according to published reports. The Korea Herald reported that officials at SK Communications, part of the SK Group, blamed malware that could be traced back to China. Experts fear the compromised data, which includes usernames, phone numbers, email addresses and passwords, could be used in other attacks that seek even more sensitive information.

Pfizer latest corporate victim in hacktivist attacks

Dan Kaplan July 21, 2011

The Facebook page for Pfizer has returned online after it was compromised by hackers who posted remarks disparaging the pharmaceutical giant. U.K.-based group The Script Kiddies claimed responsibility with gaining control of Pfizer's Facebook page, which has nearly 30,000 followers, to post updates that called the company "corrupt" and "irresponsible." Once it retook control, Pfizer posted a message on the account saying it was "working with Facebook to understand what happened so we can guard against it in the future." The Script Kiddies, through its Twitter account, posted two screenshots of the defacement, done as part of the AntiSec movement recently announced by fellow hacktivist collectives Anonymous and LulzSec.

Google+ users spammed due to disk space overload

Angela Moscaritolo July 11, 2011

Some users of the new social media service Google+ were inadvertently spammed with email notifications this weekend following a technical malfunction on the site. The error occurred during an 80-minute period when Google+, currently in beta, ran out of disk space on a system that keeps track of notifications, Vic Gundotra, a Google senior vice president of engineering, wrote in a Saturday post. "We didn't expect to hit these high thresholds so quickly, but we should have," Gundotra said.