Data Leaks

Private Profile Info Leaked by Facebook

Problem detected by researchers at Sophos

By George Craciun, Security News Editor

16th of July 2008, 13:09 GMT

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Facebook has failed to provide the necessary security measures for the users that have specifically requested that information provided by them remains private. According to Sophos, company that specializes in providing antivirus and antispam security solutions, Facebook has accidentally made public the birth dates of about 80 million users. Sophos has informed the social networking site on the situation and the problem has been remedied.

Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant with Sophos comments: "I was shocked to see people's full date of birth revealed, even though I knew they had their privacy set up correctly to supposedly hide the information. It's essential that users of social networks should have confidence that their privacy will be protected - and it's especially important with information like your date of birth, which can be a golden nugget for a committed identity thief."

According to Cluley, Facebook was in the process of testing a new member's profile design, but something went wrong and the private information was leaked. A study conducted by Sophos in 2007 in regard to social networking sites has revealed that a staggering 41% of members are willing to give out private information disregarding the associated risks.

By providing a stranger with info such as full name, birth date and address, you leave yourself open to ID theft.

"It's good that Facebook fixed the problem - but can people feel confident that this kind of mistake won't happen again in future? My advice to Facebook users would be, even if your date of birth is set to be non-visible, change it to a made-up date in case this kind of blunder happens again. Facebook and other social networking websites need to be more careful about protecting their members' data, or risk losing users." says Cluley.

Accessing social networking sites from the work place poses a security risk for the company network, it was recently revealed. Consequently 1 in 4 companies has decided to deny its employees access to such sites.

TAGS:

Sophos | Facebook | data leak | security

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