Social networking sites are now an everyday stop during the average person’s day on the computer. Sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace are now being logged into from business computers everyday. What most people do not realize is that the next game of Farmville may lead to a network security breach.

Threat #1: Worms and Spyware

Games on social networking sites, such as Farmville, are  great way to have a little fun. What most people do not realize is that anyone can create an application and send it to their ‘Friends’. This application may say it is a game, travel application, or anything else. However, if the program is a trojan horse then you could be in trouble. This will be the future of attacks and there are already examples of this in the wild. Be very careful what you open. On a business network, it is not only  your computer that might be affected.

Threat #2: Redirection to Malicious sites

You see a link on your friends Facebook page and click on it. You might just have been attacked. Hackers are targeting accounts and then submitting safe looking links to status pages. The links may go to a site that downloads spyware or that redirects you to fake versions of common web pages such as banks, ebay, or social sites. Once you enter your login information on these fake sites, your data it sent to the hackers.

Threat #3: Social Engineering

LinkedIn is a site to keep in touch with your business associates. Hackers are now using this trust to set up fake employees and asking you to be their friend. Once you friend someone who you think you worked with they use information from your profile to gain access to your systems. For example, by knowing your name, business phone #, job title, etc. they call up your IT provider and say you forgot your password.What makes this even more damaging, is that they may know from your status updates if you are traveling, on vacation, or working on a specific project to craft a more effective attack.

-Tim