Social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook and Bebo have experienced a huge surge in popularity recently. Sites like these allow users to communicate with their friends and meet new friends, but they can also expose them to malware, phishing and other online dangers. As the use of Web 2.0 applications, like social networking sites, wikis and blogs continues to rise, they are attracting increased attention from cyber criminals. Many of the users flocking to these sites are new to the Internet and lack experience in dealing with online threats.

All of the threats described in this article have now been eliminated by site owners, but new ones will inevitably arise as attackers develop their techniques in response to increased security measures. Social networking sites are attractive targets as their interactive nature allows them to spread threats very quickly. Many of these threats exploit the trust people have in their friends, emphasizing the fact that it is important to treat electronic communications with care, no matter who they appear to be from.

As with other aspects of Internet use, threats can be split into two categories: behavior-based and technology-based.

Behavior-Based

Behavior-based threats arise because users are not careful enough about the personal information they put in their online profiles, making themselves vulnerable to identity theft and phishing attacks. Users often publish information about their friends or workmates, their likes and dislikes, their jobs and hobbies without realizing that this information is valuable to identity thieves as it can help them improve their credibility.

After carrying out research on a random sample of Facebook users carried out by Sophos, an IT security company, showed that 41% were prepared to give out personal information like as email address, date of birth and phone number to a complete stranger. The researchers created a fictitious Facebook profile for a green plastic frog named Freddi and sent out 200 friend requests to random users all over the planet. 87 of the users contacted replied and 82 of them supplied personal information, like email addresses, date of birth, details about their education or workplace, address and phone number, as well as photos of friends and family and information about partners, hobbies and likes and dislikes.

Research carried out in 2007 by Internet Safety website Get Safe Online, showed that one in four UK social networking users had posted confidential personal information, such as their phone number or address on their profiles. 13% of users had posted information or photos of other people online without their consent. This figure rose to an alarming 27% among 18-24 year-olds.

Phishing isn’t the only threat to be found on social networking websites. Eleven students at a high school near Toronto were suspended for posting comments about their principal on Facebook after the school imposed a ban on electronic devices and implemented a uniform policy. A school spokesman described the comments as vulgar and profane and claimed that they amounted to amounted to cyber-bullying.

Several stories have claimed that young girls have been raped by older men who first met them via MySpace or Facebook, but none of these stories appear to have been conclusively proved. However, it remains a major problem that social networking sites can offer an opportunity for men to meet young girls in an unsupervised environment, something which should be of great concern to parents.

Technology-Based

Social networking sites can also be a source of technology-based threats. They allow millions of users to post content, so it’s fairly inevitable that some of these will be malicious persons attempting to post viruses or spyware.

At the beginning of 2008 more than three million Facebook users were infected with spyware in less than four days. A widget named “Secret Crush” or “My Admirer” is thought to have been downloaded by one and a half million users. It claimed that it would tell users who had a secret crush on them, but actually tricked them into downloading the infamous Zango spyware, which spread by asking unsuspecting users to forward it to five friends.

Anti-virus vendor Symantec has claimed that vulnerabilities which could be used by hackers to snatch control of Windows PCs have been found in ActiveX controls offered to users by both Facebook and MySpace for uploading images to their pages via Internet Explorer (IE). The insecure controls are based on an ActiveX control named Image Uploader, produced by Aurigma Inc.

Towards the end of 2005, 19-year old Samy Kamkar wrote a worm that infected more than a million MYSpace users and caused the site to shut down. The Samy worm added a million friends to his profile within a few hours, adding the string “but most of all, Samy is my hero” to each of their profiles. Kamkar was later sentenced to three years probation and made to perform 90 days of community service.

The biggest privacy breach to date on a social networking site took place in January 2008 when a 17-gigabyte file containing more than half a million pictures obtained from private MySpace profiles appeared on BitTorrent, a well-known peer-to-peer file sharing service. A security flaw, first reported in Autumn 2007, allowed hackers to access the photo galleries of some MySpace users who had set their profiles to private, the default setting for users under 16 years old. This allowed pedophiles and voyeurs to target vulnerable 14- and 15-year-old users.

In December 2007, Brazilian users of Google’s Orkut application were attacked by a worm that tried to hijack compromised computers and steal bank account details. It spread via booby-trapped links placed on the personal page of Orkut users and infected users when they viewed messages sent by friends who had already been exposed.

This loophole was closed quickly, but another worm, called Scrapkut, appeared on Orkut early in 2008. It seemed harmless at first, but it was soon discovered that it could intercept login sessions at several Brazilian banking Web sites and replace components with a fake authentication prompt which could capture the users’ logon credentials.

YouTube has also been used indirectly to spread malware. Many Internet users have received spam messages asking them to click on an attached YouTube video clip. However, the link actually takes them to a fake YouTube site where they are told that they need to install Adobe Flash Player to play the video. Clicking the supplied link causes a file called install_flash_player.exe to be downloaded. This is the same name as the real Flash installer, but it actually installs a Trojan known as Trojan-Dropper.W32/Agent.

Countering Threats

We’ve looked at some of the dangers that you can encounter on social networking sites, but what can you do to protect yourself against them? Technology-based attacks can be generally be prevented by the usual software defenses. Anti-virus software will protect you against viruses, Trojans and worms and anti-spyware programs will protect you against spyware and adware. A good-quality firewall (remember that the one supplied with Windows XP is very basic) will protect you against hackers and Internet safety suites will protect you against a variety of threats.

Behavior-based attacks rely on tricking users into behaving in an unsafe manner. These are more difficult to combat as they can only be countered by a changing user behavior. The Get Safe Online website offers some guidelines for networking safely, including the following:

Don’t allow peer pressure to push you into doing something you’re uncomfortable with.

Avoid posting information that could identify you, such as telephone numbers, photos of your home, workplace or school, your address, date of birth or full name.

Avoid including personal information in your username, eg: use laughing_boy33, rather than jim_brown.

Set up a disposable email account (eg: Hotmail or GMail) that doesn’t look like your real name and use that to register and receive mail from the site.

Use a robust password with eight or more characters.

Avoid saying anything or publishing pictures that could embarrass you later.

Use the site’s privacy features to restrict access to your profile.

Watch out for phishing scams.

If you ensure that your software defenses are strong and up-to-date and follow the above guidelines you should be able to enjoy surfing on social networking sites without problems.

Parents of young children should ensure that they are not allowed access to the Internet in an unsupervised environment. Even with older children they should try to keep an eye on their Facebook or MySpace profiles and watch out for any changes in behavior which may indicate that they are encountering online problems.