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Facebook Users Too Quick To Make Friends
Doug Caverly
Staff Writer
2009-12-07
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It's probably happened to everyone: a person who sounds vaguely familiar, claims to have attended the same high school, or just plain looks nice sends you a friend request on Facebook. Only new stats from Sophos show that perhaps far too many folks accept these requests.
 | | Facebook Users Too Quick To Make Friends |  |
Sophos created two profiles and sent 100 friend requests (from each) to people in the same age groups. Both profiles claimed to represent women, in case you're wondering, with one being 21, the other being 56, and their profile pics showing a rubber ducky and a cat, respectively.
A full 46 of the people contacted by the younger person's profile accepted the friend request. Then, although just 41 of the people contacted by the older person's profile accepted the request, eight Facebook users extended requests to "Dinette" on their own.
This led to all sorts of potential data leaks. Paul Ducklin of Sophos wrote, "The youngsters were more liberal with their workplace (or school/college if they weren't yet working); both groups were very liberal with their email addresses and with their birthdays. This is worrying because these details make an excellent starting point for scammers and social engineers."
Indeed, now's probably a good time for a lot of people to rethink their list of friends, or at the least, take another look at Facebook's privacy settings.
About the Author:
Doug is a staff writer for SecurityProNews, InternetFinancialNews, SearchNewz, and WebProNews.
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