Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
Facebook Becoming Malware Magnet, Experts Warn
8/9/2007
Popular college social networking website Facebook attracts thousands of developers wanting to enrich its functionality. But in the process it has become a magnet for malware, according to experts from the security firm VeriSign."The potential is there, and all the framework is there," Ryan Olson, an analyst for VeriSign's iDefense malicious code operations, told the ZDNet Australia news service.
In its privacy statement, Facebook now warns its users, "... You use such developer applications at your own risk."
Olson and Rick Howard, director of intelligence at VeriSign, said a the greater problem is users' openness with personal information on Facebook-like forums. "They seem to have no sense of privacy," said Howard.
He added that the "intoxicatingly interesting" nature of social networking is inherently at odds with best practices.
Read More:
Paul McCloskey is a contributing editor for the Campus Technology group of publications.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Utah Rolls Out Online Document Proofreading
The University of Utah has acquired a site license of CyProof's ErrNET for online document proofreading. ErrNET runs on CyProof's servers and is accessed through the user's Web browser. To check a document, users upload their files to the Web site, the cost is calculated, payment is requested, the document is processed, and the results are presented for download. The service works with PDF files.
- Payment Standard for Web Apps Goes Live
A new payment card industry (PCI) standard for Web application firewalls and source code went into effect July 1. PCI Industry Data Security standard 6.6 gives merchants a framework to ensure that the point-of-sale information uploaded into browser-based applications is sound from "top to bottom," the organization's literature said.
- U Texas San Antonio To Deploy Wireless Outdoor Emergency Notifications
The University of Texas at San Antonio has selected Cooper Notification's Wireless Audio Visual Emergency System (WAVES) Mass Notification System (MNS) for its outdoor campus emergency notification system. Through WAVES campus public safety departments can broadcast targeted voice alerts via "Giant Voice" to students, faculty, staff, and visitors.
- Moraine Valley CC Revamps Administrative Systems
Moraine Valley Community College in Illinois has selected Datatel Colleague and ActiveCampus Portal software to replace a legacy administration system. A committee consisting of campus-wide representatives chose Datatel after an 18-month evaluation of administrative software systems.
- Project Wonderland: Good Avatars Make Good Neighbors
Sun Microsystems's Project Darkstar and the Wonderland Toolkit for building 3D spaces show why virtual reality is better for education than video conferencing. And Project Wonderland has announced its first education space.
- Sun, Stanford Working To Archive History
In May in San Francisco, experts from leading universities, libraries, and research institutions around the world met as part of an ongoing effort to address a pressing issue: archiving the world's history, right up to today.
