Facebook has reached deep into online communities in an incredibly short space of time primarily down to it’s ease of use and open structure allowing developers to easily add new applications to share amongst users.
Recently though, multiple malicious applications have started appearing which are very cleverly disguised phishing sites often compromising user’s accounts without their knowledge or consent. A recent report from the Web Hacking Incidents Database has shown that 19% of hacking incidents occurred on social networking sites in the first six months of 2009.
This when coupled with the news that Facebook will shortly allow application developers to take payments for products and services raises serious concerns at both the viability of such a service and also security as a whole as hackers will undoubtedly increase their attention if they know they are able to syphon payment information through a malicious application.
The problem is that users treat Facebook as a convenience site. If a product appears for sale at the right price at the right time, it is highly likely that the user will make a purchase through Facebook without seriously considering the implications.
Our view is that it’s not a bad thing that Facebook is developing their own eCommerce platform, opening a service such as this to developers will encourage online spending after all, but with the increase in phishing attacks and malicious applications; this move could open up a huge can of worms.
Facebook and the other social networking sites need to get their house in order and put user security to the forefront of their development before opening further avenues for exploitation.
Have you unknowingly been exploited through a Facebook application? What are your views on the Facebook eCommerce Service? Register below and add your comments…
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