STE WILLIAMS

Every 24 hours 600,000 Facebook accounts are subject to attempted hacking or violation, Facebook has revealed.

The Social Network™ disclosed details of hacking activity as it unveiled new measures to protect user’s privacy. “We are adapting and responding to new threats everyday and will continue to roll out new ways to protect your account,” Facebook said.

In a blog post, Facebook revealed new tools to help users access their accounts if they are locked out and help prove your identity through your friends. “It’s sort of similar to giving a house key to your friends when you go on vacation – pick the friends you most trust in case you need their help,” it explains.

‘Trusted friends’ allows users to nominate a few friends as a default measure that will be given access codes to your account if you cannot access it.

It is also testing a feature that allows users to use app passwords for logging into third party applications.

Initial feedback from users has been mixed with many pointing out that “friends” are also subject to hacking and security maybe further compromised by exposing access information to other parties.

Meanwhile according to researchers at Barracuda Labs, one in 100 tweets are malicious while one in 60 Facebook posts are malicious.

The new Barracuda survey data of social media users found that LinkedIn is the least-blocked social network by enterprises, with only 20 percent of organizations preventing their employees from using LinkedIn from work.

Over 90 percent of users have received spam over a social network, and more than half have experienced phishing attacks. More than 20 percent have received malware, 16.6 percent have had their account used for spamming, and about 13 percent have had their account hijacked or their password stolen. Significantly more than half are unhappy with Facebook’s privacy controls. ®

Article source: http://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/30/facebook_hack_stats/