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Facebook Adds Malicious Link Protection
wiredmikey writes "As any IT security department knows, social networks pose a significant threat to users across the board as they blindly click links which often lead to spam or other malicious sites that could result in malware infection. In a move to further protect users of the world's largest social networking site, Facebook is adding a new feature to help protect users from links to these malicious sites. Starting today, when a Facebook user clicks on a link it will be checked against a database from Websense in an attempt to determine if the link is malicious. If the link is determined to be risky, the user will be given the choice to continue at their own risk, return to the previous screen, or get more information on why it was flagged as suspicious."
Sure, it might be used for blocking malicious links now.. but what about when competing social networks, like Diaspora, emerge? Looking at Facebook's history I'm sure they will use it to block users moving to Diaspora and reading about Diaspora. It will be used as an opinion suppression tool.
Ignoring potential future abuses, wouldn't it make more sense to disallow the posting of likely-malicious links? The vast majority of users won't read the warning text and will just click through.
Correct URL: http://www.securityweek.com/facebook-adds-malicious-link-protection-powered-websense
I've yet to have a relative's computer contract a virus because of a Facebook link, but it seems that every other day they've got some Facebook app spamming everyone on their friends list because of the promise of free online poker or whatever. When does Facebook intend to do something about that? Ever?
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Guys, come on!
In all seriousness, this'll be helpful for home users much more than it will in the office. I'm just surprised they've taken this long to do it; they've MITM'd every link for at least a year and a half.
Viable Slashdot alternatives: https://pipedot.org/ and http://soylentnews.org/
Let me guess... Google+ is listed as a malicious website.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Facebook and their omnipresent Like buttons is the largest source of intrusive monitoring on the web. I highly recommend the antisocial subscription for adblock, it's not only reduced the amount of information leaking to google and facebook but it's also improved average page load times by about 40-50% (guestimation).
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You could put up 10 warning screens like that and people will still go "BUT I WANNA SEE THE CUTE THING MY FRIEND SAW"
That should do it.
Am I the only one that think it is a little fishy that they are not checking the links when they are published, but only when user are clicking on them. So instead of doing one check per link they think it is better to do million checks... or this is just another excuse to track which user are clicking which links... but I guess that is just me being paranoid.
This has been occurring on the mobile version app for at least a week now, and it doesn't check.. every damn link you hit does the "this is an external site.. do you want to continue" crap. Its annoying. *IF* it only did it with suspect links like Google does with its search results or chrome does when it detects something, that'd be ok... but its done it for every damn link so far.
Not to mention I can't stand websenses listings (old employer used them and stuff was incorrectly classified all the time)
So Facebooks goal is to secretly collect data on you, then sell that data to whomever will pay the most, often criminals and totalitarian governments, and they are now offering protection against links that may lead to sites that do the very same thing? Thanks Facebook!
This sounds a lot like the 'Safe Browsing' feature already built into Chrome. It provides a warning screen on a suspicious page, and then allows the user to continue, or to go back.
As long as there is an opt-out setting, I really don't see what the big deal is. Am I missing something?
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
Why don't you just get DDNS through the same company through which you bought your domain?
Since social networking sites pose a significant security risk, facebook will of course block other social networking sites.
For your safety.
This is actually an issue they should have addressed a long time ago. Lots of people have their accounts hijacked and then they start sending out malicious links. And the bots are getting better at faking normal people.
I like saying "Boo Facebook" as much as anyone, but they need to do this. I don't believe this particular initiative is meant for political censorship. They already have those capabilities. I think the only thing they really gain from this partnering is the ability to block malicious links sent from hijacked accounts.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
It is to add Malicous Link protection, which is the issue you are discussing.
Democracy Now! - your daily, uncensored, corporate-free
is the service they use for similar features for security online!
I supplement BOTH of those browsers "built-in features for security" (Opera also has a urlfilter.ini/filter.ini file for this locally also) with HOSTS files (vs. host-domain name based threats, which can & DO get "recycled" by malware makers), + firewall rules tables (for IP address based known online threats (these don't last that long usually & cannot be recycled/reused by malware makers as easily)).
* I do this, for BOTH better online "layered-security"/"defense-in-depth", but, also for more online speed (details in link below from another post I did here today)...
APK
P.S.=> It just works -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2457274&cid=37589432 &, on the SIMPLEST PRINCIPLE OF ALL (i.e. of -> "You can't get burned if you don't go into the malware makers' kitchen", more-or-less)...
... apk
Of course this tells them which links you click on. And if Chrome does this, too, then google is not only aware of your searches but also the links you click on outside their domain.
Neat.
for five minutes. After that, the malware writers will identify the Facebook servers and show them a different page.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
then you have much bigger problems than Facebook.
DON'T USE FACEBOOK
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Quote from article: "Starting today, when a Facebook user clicks on a link it will be checked against the Websense database in an attempt to determine if the link is malicious."
So... Do the malicious links people post always end up in the WebSense malDB before anyone views them?
Or... Does the hosting provider of said malicious link take the "site" down first?
All I read is another FUD-calming act. Read: "Look what we've done to make our site better for you to belong to today!"
So Facebook is going to block links to sites that are full of spam, or attempt to take all of your personal information in order to make money from it...
So, as best I can tell, Facebook has deemed Facebook.com to be a malicious link...
Hey guys, just want to let you know that the Link Protection is easily broken. So much for protection, eh?