Facebook’s New Security Measures Don’t Go Far Enough
Ed Rowley, 14/05/2010, posted in "Analysis"
Ed Rowley is Product Manager EMEA and has been with M86 Security since April 2007. With over ten years of extensive sales engineering and technical expertise in IT security, ...more info
Ed Rowley is Product Manager EMEA and has been with M86 Security since April 2007. With over ten years of extensive sales engineering and technical expertise in IT security, Ed plays a pivotal role in Product Management at M86. His main responsibility is to facilitate the inclusion of customer feedback and requirements into the product development roadmap and he is also the global product manager lead for M86’s e-mail security solution - MailMarshal SMTP. Prior to M86, Ed held technical and sales engineering positions in Sophos, CipherTrust and Secure Computing. ...less info
Facebook is easy to use and this is the main reason why it is so popular. It is encouraging to see that they are trying to protect its users by adding new security measures, as cybercriminals are so well-organised and well-funded that it is unlikely the platform will remain watertight for long.
Unfortunately, adding granular security settings to anything involving individual user accounts, including Facebook, can be quite complex. It is likely that many of these security measures will remain options that Facebook users will simply ignore.
After all, thinking about security or privacy settings is less exciting than ploughing a virtual field to find some treasure or poke a new friend! When using social networking sites, it is the individual who must remain vigilant—if you deem it private, don’t post it!
What people forget is that Facebook is an organisation that seeks to generate money and make a profit. They don’t charge users and therefore they have to make money via other means. Facebook’s chief asset other than advertising space is the private and personal profile information, preferences and habits they hold about Facebook members.
Whatever they may say about the security changes being considered, Facebook and its owners will unlikely want to cut off this potential gold mine without a fight. Users must continue to think before they post, spend some time changing the security settings on their account and read the Facebook Terms of Agreement.
Of course, Facebook is only one of a number of social networking sites that are associated with this problem. Most open social networking sites work in a similar manner and while it would be nice to exercise some control over them, there are few organisations or individuals who would be willing to put their heads above the parapet and be the party-poopers.
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