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2010-02-01 16:46:24 | |
| According to a December 2009 survey, the most popular social network also beats its competitors when it comes to cyber threats. | |
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In its "Security Threat Report: 2010", security firm Sophos published statistics based on a survey they made in December. Over 60% of participants said that they think Facebook is the social network that poses the biggest risk to security, with Myspace and Twitter trailing at 18% and 17% respectively. Only 4% of participants to the survey said they thought LinkedIn posed the biggest threat.
This is more or less of a suprise when we consider the ever-increasing user base of Facebook. According to numbers gathered by Marketing Charts, it held in December over 45% of social networking Web sites and forums marketshare in the US, more than double that of the number two, MySpace (18.97%). While most companies have been blaming those Web sites for their negative impact on productivity, many now begin to see their potential for marketing and sales. Therefore it becomes more important to ensure a safe use of social networks instead of blocking them. But this is still very hard to achieve since they are constant attack vector. For example, Sophos's document says that reports of spam, phishing and malware have all risen by around 50% each between April and December 2009. Spam now stands as being the most common threat as 57% of surveyed companies said they had encountered it in December. But the danger also comes from the inside sometimes. For instance, Facebook rearranged the way privacy settings work on its Web site in December, but the new default settings divulgate a lot of information to everyone. It is quite hard to do, but companies must ensure that engaging in social networking activities from within the corporate network does not contribute to the divulgation of sensible information. | |
Reference 1: http://www.net-security.org/malware_news.php?id=1216
Reference 2: http://www.marketingcharts.com/updates/top-10-social-networking-websites-forums-december-2009-11675/
Reference 3: http://www.sophos.com/sophos/docs/eng/papers/sophos-security-threat-report-jan-2010-wpna.pdf
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