Phishers harvest Facebook passwords for profit

Thieves assume people use the same password for most online identities

Computerworld - Identity thieves that hit Facebook last week with a new round of phishing attacks are harvesting passwords for profit, a security researcher said today.

"It's not surprising that they're targeting Facebook," said Kevin Haley, a director on Symantec's security response team. "Facebook has, what, 200 million-plus users? The bad guys always go where's there's a lot of people."

The newest Facebook attacks resemble previous phishing rounds in their tactics: A compromised account sends a malicious link to friends. That link leads to a site that mimics the legitimate log-in page. But users duped into entering their usernames and passwords are likely giving away more than just their Facebook credentials, said Haley.

"Certainly this isn't new," he said, "but we think that what you're seeing is an attempt to shake out every last dollar they can get."

The criminals are operating on the assumption that the Facebook password they acquire from any given user has a good chance of being the same password that person uses on other sites, such as online shopping services or even bank accounts.

"Get one password for the right person and it's like having their wallet handed over," Symantec researcher Marian Merritt in the post to Symantec's security response blog said on Friday.

Computerworld - Complete Story

The 4 Mistakes Women Make On Facebook Reporting

Teenagers aren't the fastest growing group of Facebook users. That distinction goes to grown up women. But as adults flock to social networking sites, they need to learn a new set of social skills. Sometimes these new rules of etiquette can be confusing.

Lisa Amore of Danvers is a 40-year-old mother, but she's acting a lot like a teenager these days as she checks out her Facebook page. She says she just got hooked and finds it addictive.

Figuring out all the new terms, such as friending, defriending, and flair, can be a challenge for a new user. In fact, many adults have no idea what's appropriate behavior on Facebook.

For example, someone from high school wants to be your friend, but you didn't really like this person back then. Do you have to accept them now?

Sametrias Sena, Ashley Jones, and Anouk Sickman – all students at Pine Manor College in Brookline – say it's OK to ignore that kind of request. They also say you shouldn't feel bad if you decide to defriend someone either.

Sametrias believes that older women understand the networking aspects of Facebook, but can get lost figuring out some of the other aspects of the site.

MISTAKE 1 - THE WALL

A common mistake is what to post on someone's wall. Anouk says older people often get it wrong, and will actually write their comments on their own wall. There's often confusion about privacy as well, with some adults not understanding that a wall posting is available to a much wider audience.

MISTAKE 2 - TMI!

Another error is posting "T-M-I", or too much information. Gigi Johnson, a media expert, says "If you are providing too much information and it's coming out in your status updates, you might be making people uncomfortable."

MISTAKE 3 - MUNDANE OVERLOAD

Then there is the overload of the mundane and the stupid. People who send out endless lists and quizzes, or provide a second by second account of their day. The Pine Manor students agree this is all unnecessary, and they don't need to know what people are eating, or when they are brushing their teeth.

MISTAKE 4 - PICTURES OF OTHERS

Another potential landmine comes with the posting of pictures. Lisa Amore explained that she had "put a lot of pictures on there, and I had people request to take them off. They didn't want their picture posted. I was like, 'Oh my gosh', I didn't think you might be bothered and I genuinely felt bad about it."

So Lisa hit a pothole on the information super highway. She still loves the ride. "It's totally positive. I am loving it."

WBZ News

Burglar caught after cops post footage on Facebook

WELLINGTON, New Zealand—Police in New Zealand nabbed a burglar after posting security camera footage of him trying to crack a bar's safe on the Internet networking site Facebook.

Police said it was New Zealand's first such Facebook arrest and said they would use the site again to fight crime, as law enforcement officials and lawyers increasingly turn to online networks for purposes other than their original ones to provide social interaction.

"Facebook was very, very handy, and it's a good little tool," Senior Sgt. John Fookes of Queenstown police told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The burglar, wearing a face-covering balaclava and carrying a bag of tools, broke into a tiny storage room inside the Franklin Tavern in the tourist town of Queenstown early Monday and tried to cut into a safe containing $12,000 (NZ 20,000) in takings from gambling machines.

After nearly an hour in the cramped space, the burglar removed his balaclava and gloves and looked around -- red-faced from fruitless toil. As he left, the video shows the man suddenly spotting the lens of the security camera that was recording his every move.

Boston Globe - Full Story

Is this lawman your Facebook friend?

Increasingly, investigators use social networking websites for police work

When a Wilmington man in his early 20s overdosed on heroin the day after Christmas, local police Detective Pat Nally turned to his computer. He wanted to look at the deceased's Facebook and MySpace pages for possible clues about the source of the drug and who might have been using it with the man.

"People arrange to buy and sell drugs on Facebook; there's talk of what they may do and where they may go," said Nally. "We'd be foolish not to use it as an investigative tool."

The Wilmington investigator is not alone. In an informal survey of 14 departments in this area, officials in half of them said they use social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace in detective work - particularly in investigations involving young people.

In Harvard, the police signed on to such sites about three years ago, after a woman was sexually assaulted and beaten by three men whom she met on MySpace and invited to her house. Police contacted MySpace and tracked the assailants using their online usernames and accounts, said Chief Edward Denmark.

Now even the chief has a Facebook page himself.

Boston Globe - Full Story