adminIn Zimbabwe almost everyone who has an e-mail address has also opened a Facebook account, except a few who do not like the whole idea of socialising over the Internet.
Day in and out hundreds in Zimbabwe are joining Facebook, but truth be told, they are joining a global system with its known risks and weaknesses and very few bother to care.
With 400 million users on its own, it is a good attractive target which motivates an attacker, stalker, cyber thief, to also join Facebook. Most spywares and malwares are computer programmes created to steal personal information from the owners and they have realised millions of profits by selling such to their counterparts.
Just last year computer crackers (hackers) had managed to steal passwords and user information from 1, 5 million users and were selling it for an average of US$25 to US$45 each. This varies with the kind of information they have or the type of the target.
Personal information of a public figure would cost higher than that of an individual. What if they crack a politician, or maybe that popular business mogul, or even your local church pastor?
Personal information is worth protecting no matter which part of the continent one belongs. Anyone can sell it so long as it’s worth it.
We all have our past and sometimes it’s good to let bygones be bygones, but if one manages to come across your sensitive bygones, then definitely interests would be raised and news blazing on the media, relatives and business.
Instead of crackers to scratch hard for personal information, I was shocked to find out that most people just post their personal information freely on the Internet and it really gets me worried!
So what really is dangerous information one should never post, or rather broadcast on facebook. Let’s get a little more personal, suppose you are that girl that I have always envied but somehow I can’t get to impress you too, or even worse I can’t get your attention.
Getting your name or surname might be all I really need and before you know, I will be sending you a friend request on Facebook.
Facebook stalkers are smart! Because Facebook lets me know the friends of your friends when I’m just looking for you, this should even make it easier for one to sound more impressive.
A stalker can simply start by be-friending your friends so that by the time he/she sends you a request, you will be having lots of “mutual” friends.
It’s easy to know your interests because most people to my distaste broadcast their feelings every day on Facebook, and this spans over to their friends and I’m alarmed every day at how some people could be so careless.
Computer security experts at TechCrunch discovered a security weakness that made it possible for users to read a friend’s private chats and messages, at times these were also automatically made public to everyone linked on the contact list.
Although this weakness has been fixed, how many leaks had been made before they had managed to correct the anomaly.
Chief security officer online, Mr Joan Goodchild noted five serious security risks with Facebook. He noted your personal information could be shared with third parties. This includes other websites for commercial purposes.
The private settings reverted to a less safe default after every redesign. The automatic ads and pop-ups were vulnerable to malware.
Your own friends can unknowingly make you vulnerable especially when they are running on default settings.
They have the privilege to broadcast your sensitive information like your birthday or physical address.
Identity theft is where one uses your personal information and misrepresents oneself as you. For example it’s now possible to withdraw money without a card, all they may need is your full name, date of birth and national ID number.
Why would anyone make this personal information available to the public? It might sound sweet for all your friend’s friends to know you have a birthday before messages shower, but remember you are also making information gathering so easy for anyone who wants it.
Most college and university students chronicle their lives by building online profiles, and sharing their personal information.
Whether on Facebook, blogs or web chats you should be cautious of whatever you post. Search engines like Google and MSN can easily capture or index activity online so what you are posting now can be read even years later.
Sadly, when you play games on Facebook or answer a question about a friend, you are automatically allowing the programme to also fetch data from your profile before everyone else gets a broadcast message about the answer.
Suppose you personally know your friend and you answer all those Facebook questions correctly, are you not the person who is betraying your own friend.
This answer will be displayed to everyone who really cares to read.
Computer programmes made to steal and dupe users like Malwares or spywares are doing so much damage than the stalkers, one good example is a Trojan horse called the Miner.
These may come as a funny video, a quiz about a friend or a help we are stuck message. My advice, please just ignore those, if you personally know someone who is in trouble, it is safer you actually call the person to confirm otherwise your predator could be closing in.
To be safe, do not add any application on your Facebook profile, if u really want to play games online rather logout out and play it from a different website, or maybe offline from your hard disk or DVD drive.
I know of marriages breaking down and people who were fired due to sensitive information leaked through Facebook.
It is Facebook top interest to get you to share your personal information as much as you can, that’s their business without it they would not make so much money.
Just last week Facebook launched a programme named open graph to market your personal information to other websites for ‘better’ ideas of your interest. It is your right to protect your own information so guard it jealously.
The writer is not trying to scare you off Facebook, there are better ways to be on Facebook without exposing yourself. Under Facebook settings here are some few tips you can try to tweak. Always restrict access to user profiles.
The first section of Facebook’s Privacy page is the ‘directory’. From here, you can control who can find you on Facebook and how. Click on the ‘View Settings’ link, under ‘Connecting on Facebook’ to access those settings.
You can make each category viewable by one of five different groups: everyone on Facebook, friends of your friends and anyone in your networks, just your friends and anyone in your networks, friends of your friends only, and just your friends.
To change how people view all your information (like where you live or where you work), you should change them here. I let anyone search for me, send me friend requests, but cannot see my friend list, other than that I’ve left everything else as ‘Friends of Friends’.
Chances are high that if someone is friending me on Facebook, I know them through someone else, so it shouldn’t be hard for them to find me – everyone else I’d rather keep in the dark about who I am, where I live, and where I work.
Apart from the more obvious settings above, Facebook has implemented a few features that aren’t as well known.
Some are a bit privacy invading, and need to be turned off. To turn it off, just head back into your Privacy Settings and hit the ‘Customise Settings’ link under the table. Scroll down to ‘Things I Share’ and set ‘Places
I check in’ to ‘Only Me’, which will keep Facebook from sharing your location with anyone.
Sharing information is where you risk your identity most, this determines who can see your status updates, photos, contact information, and more. It’s pretty easy to adjust from the main privacy page. You can set it all to ‘Everyone’, ‘Friends of Friends’, ‘Friends Only’, or customise your own settings
Keep your personal information private, never post your private life online for whatever reasons, chances are someone has already been looking for it, never use your full names, ID numbers, physical address or phone numbers together.
Never post your activities on real time, or where you are going to meet with your colleagues, you could be in the same area with a stalker, remember everyone who has a link including groups and friends of friends automatically gets that information if you post it.
Just do not accept friends you don’t know, their intents are imbedded only in their hearts, check to see if they are ‘real’ friends of your friends otherwise trade cautiously, it is good to treat every request with suspicion.
Never meet online friends at a private place, it’s the oldest trick in the book do not fall for it no matter what.
Never use the same password for your accounts, crackers know most people are lazy to use different passwords and once they gain your Facebook password they will try even your e-mail, your bank account, or business Virtual Private Network logins
The law of chain link states that we are as strong as the weakest link in our system. No matter how good we all try that one weak person can expose us and I am so hopeful that you are not the one.
Toneo Ndebele Rutsito is a compTia hardware, cisco certified network engineer and linux administrator
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