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Facebook the Most Dangerous Social Tool For Businesses
wiredmikey writes "According to a recent study Facebook is by far the most popular and most dangerous social media tool among small-to-medium-sized businesses, with 69 percent of respondents reporting that they have active accounts with this site, followed by Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn. Facebook is also the top culprit for malware infections and privacy violations, e.g. the leaking of sensitive company information. YouTube took the second spot for malware infection, while Twitter contributed to a significant number of privacy violations. For companies suffering financial losses from employee privacy violations, Facebook was again cited as the most common social media site where these losses occurred, followed by Twitter, YouTube, and LinkedIn."
Dangerous in what form? I don't get that.
For malware specficially, well I guess that isn't surprising, I have a facebook account and I always see my friends posting links that are clearly spam. I guess some other people see this and click on it (by accident or not) and then they get infected too, and so it spreads.
Almost all of the last 20 or so stories have been about either social networking sites or Google and its products. Man, I remember when programming topics actually used to make it to the front page. You know, news for nerds.
Normal uneducated people post whatever comes to their mind on Facebook.
Film at 11.
Oh my lord... there's MALWARE on Facebook?? I thought all those links for free iPads were real! Noooooo!!!
This shouldn't surprise anyone, really.
Don't be dumb on the internet. Got it, thanks.
Never would have figured that out on my own.
Companies should simply block social networking sites or have policies against there use. In my office the average user spends 135% of there work hours logged into facebook 135%?! most of them leave it logged in when they go home
"Oooh! A talking moose wants my credit card number. That seems fair!"
The most dangerous tool is the one sitting in the chair.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Facebook and similar sites attract a lot of malware, true. How about not using a platform known to be hypersensitive to this malware when accessing these sites? Why is this simple and effective solution never proposed?
Why oh why oh why does the average IT person not contemplate this effective, cheap - yes cheap - and sensible solution? It is almost as if there is a religious dogma against pointing a finger at Windows. Even the most die-hard Windows fanatic surely should see the sense in this approach? If you want to navigate the high seas you'd use something which withstands salty water and is known not to leak. It would be... wise... to use something which withstands malware and is known to survive network contact when navigating the cesspool called social networking.
I am truely flabbergasted by this resistance to change. If you stand to lose ${many} by allowing Windows on the 'net... why not prevent that loss?
--frank[at]unternet.org
How do you get infected with malware from youtube?
You can't take the sky from me...
Sadly, slashdot remains last on both the list of sites from which to contract malware infections and the list of sites on which to meet people from which to contract an STD.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I thought they might actually talk about something meaningful. With businesses using facebook and its ilk for conducting business, I thought TFA might talk about how small businesses are using it incorrectly and turning off customers or something.
It seems a lot more pertinent, as people tend to think that it is either a great tool for communication, both positive AND negative.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Okay, I'm no troll, but this is news to me. How does this happen? You all run antivirus software, and yet somehow actually *visiting* a site can infect you. So how does this work? Can you visit a site wearing a 'condom', or do you know, somehow, that you shouldn't click on something.
No trolling, but as a Mac user I click what I like. How do you know what to click or not click?
When are we going to stop this nonsense! the maximum is 100%...Even in cases of engines where they say that they are going over 100%, they are not. In this case, when they say 100% they actually mean some value below the actual 100% which it is safe to operate continuously.
To summarize: Alarmist e-zine for PHB's confirms their suspicions that Facebook and YouTube are, in fact, the devil. Why is this on Slashd...oh, it's samzenpus. Never mind...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Actually, I guess it depends on what sections he reads, since Slashdot does offer some customizability in what you see on the front page. Someone who isn't interested in idle, games, etc, and reads the IT and/or technology sections, or even only reads one of the Slashdot sub-sites, might see a different set of stories than you do.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If I would have to make decisions in a company, I would block Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and a few other sites which are popular but not necessary for company life. I am aware that a certain amount of private activity is fine in corporate environment, but certain sites draw just far too much time on them on a regular basis.
I for myself do not have a Facebook nor a Twitter account. And I use the Leechblock extension on Firefox to keep me of unnecessary sites during work hours which I otherwise would visit far too often. I know my weaknesses and from some of them I have to protect me myself...
Once again we have another poll which is somehow supposed to represent actual facts.
This is a "study" by a company that sells computer security "solutions" to small and medium-sized businesses. Haven't we all learned by now that these reports are largely designed to scare PHBs into buying the products and services these companies peddle? There's absolutely nothing in TFA that enables us to determine how the firms were chosen, who was interviewed, how they were selected, and whether they have even a clue about how sites like Facebook and YouTube might be the culprits.
Enough breathless reporting of stupid press releases, Slashdot editors. Just because SecurityWeek has no editorial scruples doesn't mean you shouldn't have them.
Who would have ever thought the most popular website in the world, that users can post links on, would have the most links to malware and spam. Oh wait, that just common fucking sense isn't it?
I've seen people do some really dumb stuff on Facebook that they almost certainly wouldn't do elsewhere.
A few weeks ago, there was a viral (in the true sense of the word) page that got popular really fast - I think it claimed to let you see who'd un-friended you, but I might have that bit wrong. Anyway, after an acquaintance got hit by this, I went to check it out. Basically this page said "here's how you do it - just copy and paste the following into your browser's address bar". This was followed by what was pretty obviously a bunch of hex instructions (likely obfuscated javascript, but maybe vbscript) that apparently downloaded harmful code to the user's computer - and since the code was entered by the user, it didn't raise any red flags (maybe only by IE, maybe by other browsers as well - I didn't take it any further).
I can't imagine anyone in this day and age going to a random website and following these instructions - but on Facebook they were happy to! It was so breathtakingly stupid I had a hard time believing people fell for it; but they obviously did.
#DeleteChrome
for postings about upcoming events.
- New products.
- New discounts
- New prices
Remember FTA, business's have accounts on facebook. Not that workers are posting to facebook. Your only addressing part of the article.
Anonymous comments are as pathetic as the anonymous "sources" that contaminate gutless journalism from the New York Time
Also dangerous in that your HR staff are mucking about on facebook all day instead of working using the excuse that they are getting background information on potential staff. That's a horrible excuse because hiring or firing decisions should not be made on the basis of the trivia that ends up on facebook pages. You get idiots hired because they look good in a photo or have the same hobby as the HR person. Within the normal bounds of mental health and with competant management personality should be irrelevant to most jobs anyway. Profiling beyond competance for the job is almost a complete waste of time.
We take things like facebook too seriously. Nobody in the workplace should care about a teachers "drunken pirate" costume party photo for example, let alone the teacher losing their job over it.
This is an interesting point of debate, as it questions a company's internal control vs external gain. Since the point here you are addressing is the unintentional irresponsible use of Facebook et al, it calls for stricter organisational policies (rather rules) to restrict employees the access to their private profiles while using the company's internet network. Since almost every small & medium scaled organisation has 'promotion using social media' on their strategic e-marketing campaign list, is it possible for information on official company fb/twitter pages to be misused as well? If yes, this would pose a bigger threat. Any viewpoints?
You use a Facebook page to interact with customers but it is impossible to setup your business fan page to notify you when someone makes a comment, unless you personally "like" everything you post, making you look like a total jackass either way. Either to get around this or because Facebook makes setting up a fan page as difficult as possible and people can't even figure out where to get started, people use a personal account which is against the TOS and then after getting hundreds or thousands of people connected Facebook deletes the account. I find it to be a complete and utter waste of time.
I want to repurpose your term! I never knew so many people can't spell "lose"! :: Loose : Goatse
Thanks for reminding me of a Sig I wanted for a couple of weeks.
Lose : Goats
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine