Us old guys who HATE Facebook aren't always Dinosaurs.

[pparks1]

Facebook has temporarily shut down about 45,000 accounts to protect users from a worm that steals login information and spreads malicious links, the Telegraph reports. Called Ramnit, the worm has been proliferating since April 2010 but only recently adapted to Facebook accounts. Most of the victims are in Britain and France, according to an Israeli computer security firm.

Facebook Closes 45K Accounts to Stop 'Worm' - Ramnit worm steals login info, spreads nasty links

The problem isn't Facebook or other social media.

Thank you.

I'm a Facebook user and this story does absolutely NOTHING to persuade me to not use it anymore. It's a standard piece of malware, just like any other piece of malware and when somebody manages to get themselves infected with such malware they get their facebook accounts compromised.

As far as my reading of the article, it's not a worm that was deployed on Facebook that hacked their accounts. It's a worm that managed to get onto a machine through typical means and rather than harvesting user accounts/passwords for bank accounts and such it grabbed facebook usernames/passwords. Then, facebook was used a vector through compromised accounts to provide links and downloads and such to further infect more machines.

But the fault lays squarely to blame on those facebook users who cannot refrain from clicking on links and such that friends post. If these people don't run AV or antimalware on their machines, they just may get infected. I've managed to run Windows for years without significant security ramifications, just as I have managed to use Facebook without incident too.

the reminder to "think before you click" needs to be accompanied by the reminder to have a strong, unique, secure password -- and be sure to use a different password everywhere.

Yes, absolutely the best policy.

The thing that really "amuzes" me it that people are willing to put all kinds of personal information on facebook. Many details even. I always wonder why. Would you walk out of your house and approach the first person you see and tell your name, your address, etc?

No, I would not. And in Facebook, you set your profile and all of your info to ONLY be available to friends. And if Facebook weren't available, you could also pick up a phone book or phone number search engine and find names, addresses and phone numbers for most people.

 

[FranzB]

The thing that really "amuzes" me it that people are willing to put all kinds of personal information on facebook. Many details even. I always wonder why. Would you walk out of your house and approach the first person you see and tell your name, your address, etc?

No, I would not. And in Facebook, you set your profile and all of your info to ONLY be available to friends. And if Facebook weren't available, you could also pick up a phone book or phone number search engine and find names, addresses and phone numbers for most people.[/QUOTE]

Obviously you are a very experienced IT user.
As far as "all your info ONLY available to friends" let me tell you the following story.
I was once interested in information on a person who i knew is on facebook.
I am not on facebook but i have a friend half around the globe who is. So i asked him to get me the info. He told me he asked the person to become a friend and this was accepted within 10 seconds and i have no reason to not believe him. He also told me the person had hundreds of friends. Friends, all checked for whatever qualities?

 

[Corrine]

The thing that really "amuzes" me it that people are willing to put all kinds of personal information on facebook. Many details even. I always wonder why. Would you walk out of your house and approach the first person you see and tell your name, your address, etc?

No, I would not. And in Facebook, you set your profile and all of your info to ONLY be available to friends. And if Facebook weren't available, you could also pick up a phone book or phone number search engine and find names, addresses and phone numbers for most people.

It amazes me how many people have their settings to "Public" instead of "Friends" or "Custom".

For Facebook users, here's an excellent article, especially with the false information about hovering over the "Subscribe" link circulating yet again: Facebook’s ticker privacy scare, and what you should do about it

 

[Night Hawk]

You got that one right! There's also the "me only" setting seen in FB for privacy as well. In many cases you won't see anything on someone's Info page but you go to the next contact and whamo a full page resume'!

From just that alone you can see where it isn't FaceBook, Twitter, or any other social network to blame 100% but a good look at how vunerable people make themselves! You can actually to some extent compare FB to IE and later FF in a sense where everyone assumed FireFox was the "safe" browser to use over IE 6 riddled with security holes.

BUT! The next thing you know FF became popular and a popular target of malware writers showing it also became vulnerable! Likewise with FB growing fast it became the next in line to exploit those who leave themselves vulnerable from the start.

 

[M1GU31]

i stopped caring about social networking about 3 years ago when i use to use myspace and about facebook i didn't even bother ,doesn't interst me anymore though my myspace one is outdated and set to only friends can see and set my picture to my dog instead of my face so its just a page that says private and shows a dog lol

 

[Night Hawk]

Don't worry I wasn't too thrilled about FB either when people I know started getting into it. I simply wanted to keep updated on what was going on when deciding to open an account.

Actually on a second one now since the first starting getting "unknown" friend requests! I left that account behind in 2011 without hesitation!

 

[Julian Strange]

A couple days ago, I shared information about Ramnit with a long-time friend. She said she thought she had a unique, secure password. I sent her to How Secure Is My Password? and, much to her dismay, she discovered her password could be cracked in 10 days.

It would take a desktop PC
About 408 thousand years
to hack your password
​

No wonder I can never remember it

 

[FranzB]

@ Corrine
So now i finally understand how my friend could get all the information from that FB account. I've been thinking and thinking how it is possible to be accepted as a friend in < 10 sec unless the person watches the requests 24hrs/day.
The account was simply set on public. Never thought it would be an option. This gives me free capacity to tackle other problems.

@ M1GU31 (is that password?)
Watch out. Someone may abduct your dog now! Better train it not to go up to strange people and sniff around out of curiosity.

Going back to cracking passwords and these calculations how long it would take. Is this calculated for normal personal computers with a certain speed? Or what? Nobody would go through the trouble cracking even a bad password and have the PC running for a couple of days. What happens to those figures of millions of years if a powerful computer is used? And then it would only be worth the trouble if something really big can be obtained.
So i am bit doubtful about this necessity of an "ultra safe password" considering the trouble and time they have to go through even if the password is bad. Rather, i think, they probabbly try out a list of "popular" passwords and if no success they move on to the next victim. Of course, this does not go for passwords of some enterprise. But then the haul is much bigger.

 

[kronckew]

this dissertation on password strength reminds me of a man in new york whose apartment was burgled. he put in a deadbolt lock. burgled again. put in a steel door and frame with deabolt locks (2), door bar, floor brace, and a 200 dB alarm with a switch on the door to set it off when the door was opened if a 5 digit code was not entered within 10 seconds...

the next burglar broke thru the wall next to the door frame.

moral: if they want to get in they will. they can also sometimes think 'outside the box'.

p.s. - this actually sort of happened here in london. company i worked for in another branch in swindon had some new compaqs taken from an enclosed loading area, they prised up the rollup door. the co. alarmed the doors & ensured any late deliveries were never left in the loading area, but were carried inside the main bldg. they added motion sensors to the loading area alarms. few weeks later the next burglar broke thru an external concrete wall directly into the server room & walked off with three of our servers. luckily we had full offsite backups. and a number of spare servers. we moved the server room more internally. (no more burglaries while i was there.)

 

[FranzB]

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moral: if they want to get in they will. they can also sometimes think 'outside the box'.

That's exactly "it". Thinking outside of the box. Most new developments came along that way.
There have been very few fortresses in history that have not been taken. A beautiful
example is the Maginot Line. The guns couldn't even turn 180 degrees and shoot if an army approached from the back. The ennemy HAD to come from across the Rhine!

 

[Trucidation]

But seriously. Do you really think that fingerprints will solve anything at all? After all, the print has to be stored on your computer and thus it can be stolen. It is as simple as that.

I pretty sure that fingerprint recognition would be implemented stupidly, leading to an epidemic of finger-severing assaults.

It has already happened.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Car thieves steal finger

 

[lehnerus2000]

The key to password security is constant regular rotation.

If someone can crack your password in 10 days, change it every 5 days (also don't reuse any old passwords).
In reality that is too painful for most situations.

It has already happened.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Car thieves steal finger

I love being right.

 

[Night Hawk]

I'm not actually surprized to see a report like that when you compare what was considered the high value target the thieves were after. The typical FB user generally put more then some general information unless they slip up like phone numbers and other things while the car theft industry is big business.

When you start adding your banking information for example then you make yourself a target for thieves. Likewise the worm was geared to go after information from the FB pages businesses have more then the average home user.

 

[FranzB]

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...............................................................
Likewise the worm was geared to go after information from the FB pages businesses have more then the average home user.

Very clever and efficient. The "rewards" proportional to the effort made.

 

[Night Hawk]

Well you have to remember small businesses as well as larger corporations will have an FB page of their own. If you can grab something useful from a few the information can be valuable! This is also why large companies employ security consultants and more commonly seen these days cyber security is included as well.

 

[seavixen32]

But seriously. Do you really think that fingerprints will solve anything at all? After all, the print has to be stored on your computer and thus it can be stolen. It is as simple as that.

I pretty sure that fingerprint recognition would be implemented stupidly, leading to an epidemic of finger-severing assaults.

It has already happened.

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Car thieves steal finger

Is this what's known as cutting to the chase?

 

[KremmenUK]

Like a few earlier posts I had a look when it first started and couldn't see the point.

Nor was I prepared to divulge such personal information that anyone can hack into.

 

[lehnerus2000]

Another "can of worms".

ZDNet
Passwords tangled in Fifth Amendment | ZDNet

 

[FranzB]

What's the trouble? If they have a search warrant they simply break open the door if you don't open up.
Take a hacker and crack the passwork.
This is playing the legal field, like the Harlem Globetrotteers played basketball against their opponents.

 

[FranzB]

@ M1GU31 (is that a password?)
Watch out. Someone may abduct your dog now! Better train it not to go up to strange people and sniff around out of curiosity.

Another thing..........
You may be out of luck when you post a picture of your dog on FB.
I just read up on Google's new search alogarithm (Search and Your World). That dog picture won't help you. Google will connect it with everything personal you have on the net. No escape. You've had it.
Actually, it becomes frightening and this may be just the start.