Chinese Spies Used Fake Facebook Profile To Friend NATO Officials

An anonymous reader writes "Late last year, senior British military officers, Defense Ministry officials, and other government officials were tricked into becoming Facebook friends with someone masquerading as United States Navy admiral James Stavridis. By doing so, they exposed their own personal information (such as private e-mail addresses, phone numbers, pictures, the names of family members, and possibly even the details of their movements), to unknown hackers."

Comments

ASL?

[Anonymous Coward]

oh hai, asl?

Facebook is secure against hackers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Who knew that if you weren't friends with someone, they couldn't see your data. Hmm. Seriously though. Senior NATO officials have Facebook pages! Dumb! Their private information is on those Facebook pages? Dumber...

Re:Facebook is secure against hackers?

[geekmux]

Who knew that if you weren't friends with someone, they couldn't see your data. Hmm. Seriously though. Senior NATO officials have Facebook pages! Dumb! Their private information is on those Facebook pages? Dumber...

Ah, no, Mr. Johnson happens to have a Facebook page. Mr. Johnson also happens to be married to Mrs. Johnson, and has two children and a dog. Mr. Johnson also happens to live in XYZ, America. Mr. Johnson also happens to have an email address, yes. And ALL of this information is probably public record and can be sourced from MANY different locations online anyway, so it's hardly "private information".

The fact that Mr. Johnson also happens to be a "Senior NATO official" isn't a sign of being dumb or dumber, unless it explicitly is against Government regulation, and since Facebook has pretty much always been approved for use by Government employees, I seriously doubt it's against policy to have an account while serving.

The only thing that would likely be an issue for OPSEC for certain personnel performing certain duties would be record of movement to develop pattern analysis. Now, if you're broadcasting that information like the average 13-year old girl (i.e. every 47 seconds), then yes, that is being dumb regardless of your job. If that's an issue, might as well ban Twitter and Facebook for damn near every Government employee who holds a security clearance.

People are dumb

[Monoman]

Social engineering FTW ... again.

Re:oh boy

[Anonymous Coward]

Please dont misrepresent this. These government people are at fault here for being stupid.

Unknown Hackers?

[JustinFreid]

Registering for Facebook with a fake name hardly qualifies as hacking.
Surprisingly, the headline is more accurate than the story.

Re:Seriously, why?

[Racemaniac]

Because they are just people too. Who also want to stay in touch with friends & family?

Big Deal

[travdaddy]

Email addresses, phone numbers, family members? Those officials probably give out the same information when they sign up for customer appreciation cards.

Re:Seriously, why?

[Dynamoo]

Because people in these high-profile and sensitive positions cannot expect life to be exactly normal. When the nature of the job means that you are advised to check under your car for bombs before you get in it, then a certain degree of caution is needed.

Re:Seriously, why?

[DarkOx]

It all depends on what you post there.

No that is the problem it depends on what YOU post there and what everyone you are FRIENDS with post there.

Maybe you don't post your going on vacation for week because you don't would be crooks to know for sure you are not at your house. Your girlfriend however is not so careful and or does not much care about her apartment. She posts she is out of town for the week and than tags you in some photos at the beech from her mobile.

Now anyone in either of your circles has a pretty good idea YOU are out of town. This is problem. Someone with an 'in' could be at the friend of friend level, depending on not just YOURS but your FRIENDS privacy settings and some time to pick through the site and workout relationships (even if the info is not shared, they could do it through pictures etc, odds are the girl with your arm around her waste is wife or girlfriend not a sister, etc) can derive lots of information based on what others post that YOU never shared.