If you don’t recall sending Facebook messages to your friends with links to ‘Get your best body now!’ or ‘Make money today!’ you are not alone.
Online viruses have become a common problem on the social networking site Facebook. These viruses take over accounts and distribute false information.
Student Amanda Aragon said she didn’t send Facebook messages to several of her friends, but they certainly received them.
“My friend called me and asked, ‘What is with that message you sent me?’ and I asked what she meant,” Aragon said. “It said ‘Look at the pictures from the SAE blacklight party, click here.’ My friend couldn’t click on it because she got it on her phone, but two other friends did and both of their accounts got hacked.”
Students often overlook the dangers of the Internet, said Mike Carr, UNM’s chief information security officer of Information Technology.
“There are bad people on the Internet that want to steal your money and your identity — it is an unfortunate fact,” he said. “Oftentimes, people will overlook their security or not think that it is that big of a deal because it only happens to other people.”
Profile infiltration can occur in a variety of ways, Carr said.
“There are Facebook polls that, if you participate in them, you give the author of the poll information which you have marked as private,” he said.
Aragon said the hacker changed her password and her e-mail, preventing her from simply resetting the password.
Facebook profile access has recently caused high-profile issues with friend requests from people unknown to the user, Carr said.
“A couple weeks ago Google was hacked along with several different companies, and they are thinking it occurred in China,” he said. “Right now all the research indicates that some of these Chinese hackers actually became friends, or pretended to be friends with Google employees to get more information.”
Facebook cleared up Aragon’s problem she said, but one of her friends was not so lucky.
“They fixed it for me for me and another friend but one had to get a whole new account,” she said. “The account that was hacked into is still running. They changed her picture and made her status ‘follow the white raver.’ It was really weird.”
According to Facebook’s privacy policy, which you agree to upon creating a profile, the safety of your information is not guaranteed.
“Although we allow you to set privacy options that limit access to your information, please be aware that no security measures are perfect or impenetrable,” the site’s policy states.
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Facebook has been pressured to tighten the security of their site, Carr said, but preventative measures should still be taken by students — especially when making passwords.
“Try to segregate your online life,” he said. “Since a lot of people use the same password for Facebook that they do for e-mail and they do for banking, if I have one password I have all your passwords.”
His suggestions are cohesive with those in Facebook’s privacy policy.
“You can reduce risks by using common sense security practices such as choosing a strong password, using different passwords for different services and using up-to-date anti-virus software,” the policy reads.
Ultimately, common sense is the best thing you can do to protect your privacy, Carr said.
“You have to be smart about what sites you visit,” he said. “Everybody recognizes that you don’t go in certain parts of town at 3:30 in the morning, but unfortunately on the Internet, even the really bad Web sites can look really good.”
Carr said that ads on the side of Web pages are especially dangerous.
“We have to be smarter – so if you want to go to Macys.com, you type it in,” he said. “Don’t click on the link that claims Macy’s is giving away free shirts and blouses.”
PULL QUOTE:
“Everybody recognizes that you don’t go in certain parts of town at 3:30 in the morning, but unfortunately on the Internet, even the really bad Web sites can look really good.”
– Mike Carr, UNM chief information security officer of ITS
