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Facebook’s new security features and the Zuckerberg hacking incident

This past week was eventful for Facebook and for Mark Zuckerberg. The Facebook page was hacked as first reported by Techcrunch ““Let The Hacking Begin” Declares Person Who Hacked Zuckerberg’s Facebook Fan Page”  (http://techcrunch.com/2011/01/25/zuckerberg-fan-page-hack/) . The message left on the page was:

“Let the hacking begin. If facebook needs money, instead of going to the banks, why doesn’t Facebook let its users invest in Facebook in a social way? Why not transform Facebook into a ‘social business’ the way Nobel Price winner Muhammad Yunus described it? http://bit.ly/fs6rT3 What do you think? #hackercup2011”

Facebook then said it was a “bug” as reported by the BBC “Facebook blames bug for Zuckerberg ‘hacking’” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12286377). Well I guess they can speak to Microsoft about “bugs” and letting their software be hackable. Not much more was explained.

One other interesting event that was also news with Facebook was the launch of their encrypted login process as reported by the Huffingtonpost “What Facebook’s New Security Features Mean For You”. This has actually been around for a while but not published. What does this mean? Well when you go to Facebook.com now, just go to https://www.facebook.com.  The “https” will allow you to have your login encrypted so the guy sitting next to you in Starbuck and capture your traffic on the wireless network and steal your login ID and password by running Firesheep or other sniffing program. You can also do this with many social networking sites even though they do not publicize it.

To turn on this feature automatically go to “Accounts” -> “Account Setting” -> “Account Security” -> “Change” and select “Browse Facebook on a secure connection (https) whenever possible”. If you have never played with the Privacy Setting you should probably check those out as well. Stop sharing everything about yourself with “Everyone”!

Facebook privacy settings
Facebook privacy settings

Gary Bahadur

CEO Zcurity, baha@zcurity.com

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