Safe Social Networking

Social networking is changing the face of communication. Many people are converting their primary means of communication from email and text messaging to social networking sites. Facebook and LinkedIn have connected millions of users to friends, family, co-workers and even potential clients or employers.

Since social networks and social media sites have become so popular, malicious people have found new ways to steal sensitive information through these sites. .These malicious people create fake identities, befriend unsuspecting users, gain access to personal information, and eventually reset passwords to private financial accounts. Attackers have found ways to lure users with requests to click on a link or photo that might really link to the phishing or malware site. For example, clicking on a picture exclaiming .Free Apple iPod. may lead to a site that infects your computer with a virus.

Facebook & LinkedIn Privacy Settings

Although Facebook might cause more embarrassing or detrimental problems for college students and young adults, it.s important for professionals and faculty who use Facebook to understand the privacy settings for profiles. By default, anyone in the network you are a part of, including people who are not your friends, can see your full profile. Fortunately, it.s easy to change this. Follow these simple steps to secure your Facebook profile:

• Under "Settings," go to the "Privacy" section
• Click "Profile" to control who can see your page
• Change that profile view setting to "Only Friends," to keep out others on your network
• Visit the Facebook Privacy Policy site to learn more

LinkedIn, considered a safer social networking site, makes it easy to keep track of your business or professional connections. Similar to Facebook, profiles are public, by default, meaning even if a .connection. is not established, other users may see your full profile. To limit how much of your profile is exposed publicly, do the following:

• Click .Account & Settings. in the upper right corner on the Home tab
• Click .Public Profile. under Profile Settings
• From there, simply uncheck the options you do not want displayed publicly
• Visit the LinkedIn Privacy Policy site to learn more

Dangers

Facebook and LinkedIn provide malicious users a window to attack users who search for new contacts, friends, job ventures, or expert advice. Because it.s easy to get distracted by prominent photos, advertisements, and links on the sidebar of your Internet browser or a connection.s homepage, attackers can simply post unprotected links to offsite content or corrupted applications.

Attackers can also take hold of someone.s persona and create a new profile, re-adding friends and stating that something happened to their old profile. This type of attack would take a long time to get noticed because by creating a new profile, the attacker blocks communication and access to connections from the original account.

Facebook and LinkedIn also offer any member of the social network the ability to create useful tools or applications for an individual.s profile, and offer them publicly. Since some users are unfamiliar with secure programming, application creators may unknowingly generate vulnerabilities in their applications, making them easy for a malicious user to exploit. Once an application is infected, every user that downloads the application is attacked by the malware. To protect yourself, read about the application before using it to make sure it doesn.t lead to any corrupted material.

How Do Popular Social Networks Compare?