Ajab sa risk hai! Facebook me hai Risk!

Over the last few years, Facebook's growth has been phenomenal. The world's no. 1 social networking site also sometime back beat Google to become the most visited Web site in the US for an entire week at a stretch. However, the site has also lately being receiving lot of flak for its privacy policies.

An expert in online privacy drew attention to the five dangers of sharing information on social networking site Facebook. Joan Goodchild, senior editor of CSO (Chief Security Officer) Online, said that marketing efforts by the company often results in a compromise on account holders' privacy.

Goodchild noted five risks of using Facebook. They are:

Risk 1: Your information is being shared with third parties

According to Facebook policy last updated on April 2010, "When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends' names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to "everyone." ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection."

Risk 2: Privacy settings revert to a less safe default mode after each redesign

In March, private e-mail according to a Gawker report, private email addresses that many Facebook users wanted to keep hidden were revealed publicly on a multitude of Facebook profiles. The glitch was later resolved by Facebook.

Risk 3: Facebook ads may contain malware

Recently, a Facebook event invitation was reportedly sent to some over 2,300 friends of Jim Breyer, Accel Partners venture capitalist who sits on Facebook's board of directors, asking "Would you like a Facebook phone number?" However, the message was actually a scam and the users who entered their passwords in response to the message in turn sent the whole thing to their friends lists too.

"This was a phishing scam and Jim's account appears to have been compromised," read a statement from Facebook as provided to venture industry news site PEHub.

Risk 4: Your friends unknowingly make you vulnerable

On May 6th, the popular social network patched a major security bug that allowed users to snoop on their friends' private chats, and view their pending friend requests. The exploit forced Facebook to temporarily disable chat.

Risk 5: Scammers are create fake profiles

Earlier this week, 15 privacy and consumer protection organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, alleging that the site manipulates privacy settings to make users' personal information available for commercial use.

Facebook hacker jailed for 8 months in UK

LONDON: A British student, who hacked into Facebook's internal network risking "disastrous" consequences for the website, was jailed for eight months on Friday in what prosecutors described as the most serious case of its kind they had seen.

Glenn Mangham, 26, a software development student, admitted infiltrating Facebook from his bedroom at his parents' house in York in northern England last year, sparking fears at the US company that it was dealing with major industrial espionage.


"This was the most extensive and flagrant incidence of social media hacking to be brought before British courts," said Alison Saunders, London's Chief Prosecutor. "Fortunately, this did not involve any personal user data being compromised."

Facebook first became aware of a security breach in its internal network in April and called in the FBI. The US agents established the source of the hacking was based in Britain and British police raided Mangham's home in June.

Mangham said he had previously helped search engine Yahoo Inc improve its security and wanted to do the same for Facebook. However, prosecutors rejected his explanation.

"He said he wanted a mini project and chose Facebook because of its high-profile internet presence," prosecutor Sandip Patel told London's Southwark Crown Court.

"The prosecution does not accept that the defendant's actions were anything other than malicious."

The court was told Facebook spent $200,000 in dealing with his actions, the Press Association reported.

Judge Alistair McCreath told Mangham his actions were not harmless and had "real consequences and very serious potential consequences" which could have been "utterly disastrous" for Facebook.

"You and others who are tempted to act as you did really must understand how serious this is," he said.