With more than 800 million active users Facebook is one of the biggest social networking websites in the world. Therefore, it is of no surprise that the site is the constant target among hackers and other sorts of cyber criminals. Some of them want to hack into the website, so they could steal the personal information, and other simply want the site to go down, because in their point of view, Facebook is increasingly trespassing their privacy.
One of such hacking groups has claimed that they would “kill” Facebook by November 5, 2011, because Facebook threatens the freedom of information. Obviously, as November 5th has gone by already, the “murderous” intent was not carried out to the fullest, but that does not mean that Facebook is an absolutely safe place to stay. More than 600 000 accounts get hacked every single day, and some of these hacks are performed in a meticulous order by various groups of so-called “hacktivists”. A known hacktivist group called Team SwaSTika managed to hack into more than 10 000 Facebook accounts alone. The results of the hack were that thousands of personal details were released onto Pastebin, which is a popular text sharing site.
This example is just one of the many. The security of the Facebook accounts is trespassed every single day, and sometimes the user himself is the one to blame for it, because he or she does not take the account’s security seriously. According to the security map revealed by Facebook, the security starts with the login and the least the user can do to ensure the personal account security is enable the secure HTTPS connection via the Account Settings section. Facebook highly discourages saving login details and passwords automatically on the browser, especially if the user logins on a public computer. What is more, Facebook claims that they “are adapting and responding to new threats every day and will continue to roll out new ways to protect your account”.
For those whose accounts have been hacked Facebook offers a new security feature called Trusted Friends. This feature allows the user to get back to his or her account through their friends. According to Facebook, it’s almost like giving your house key to a trusted neighbor when you leave for the summer vacation. Nevertheless, the questions of security are still being raised, because no one can be safe and there is no guarantee that your friends will not be hacked as well. Therefore, whether we like it or not, up until today, Facebook security is still a troublesome matter which is yet to be resolved.