Information Protection and Security

Hundreds of Facebook groups have been hijacked in recent days by users pointing out what they say is a weakness in how the social-networking site handles the administration of its groups.
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Researchers at Symantec find a Trojan that uses Facebook to communicate with a command and control server.
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Judge Jeremy Fogel on Thursday ordered the self-anointed spam king Sanford Wallace to pay the damages for accessing user accounts without authorization and spamming "friends" through messages and "wall" posts, Sam O'Rourke, senior counsel at Facebook, said Thursday night on the company's blog.

Computerworld - A massive bot-based attack has been hitting Facebook users, with nearly three-quarters of a million users receiving fake password reset messages, according to security researchers.

Researchers at several security firms have uncovered a spam campaign targeting Facebook users. The e-mails, which pose as communications from Facebook about password resets, contain a nasty downloader that ultimately makes users part of a notorious botnet.
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Do we really want Facebook to keep peering into updates meant just for friends and family? The research serves as a good reminder about cybersecurity -- after all, it is National Cybersecurity Month. If you put something on Facebook, no matter how tight your privacy settings are, Facebook Inc. can still hang onto it, analyze it, remix it and repackage it.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…many users use the networks for business purposes.  Keep in mind that your chatter or tweeting does affect the way the world sees you now, and in your future.  Some comments can end up with huge consequences. Even your user name can make a difference. Check your privacy configuration and make sure you keep most of your posts between friends and family.

Security researcher Roger Thompson, of AVG Technologies, today said his company in recent days discovered numerous Facebook pages that were clearly created in an automated fashion using malware programs. The pages are being used to spam links pointing to malicious sites. Users who click on the link are prompted to install rogue anti-spyware tools on their systems, he said.

Facebook on Thursday said it has disabled a group of rogue apps that were stealing Facebook user log-in credentials and spamming people.

It will spend $9.5M on a foundation devoted to online privacy issues.
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