Facebook Number One Security Compromiser         

August 18, 2015

While Facebook is a good way for a company to engage with clients and even “humanize” the business, according to Zerofox’s article, “Cisco: Facebook Scams Are Attackers’ #1 Choice For Breaches” Facebook is the number way for a criminal to learn about organization and hack into its system.  Cisco conducted a 2015 Midyear Security Report that researches how cyber criminals are exploiting social media to their own advantage.

The article describes potential targets as easy and click-happy:

Facebook’s 1.49 billion monthly active users make it the world’s largest nation-state, used by 70% of American each day. It is, for better or worse, a nation without borders. Adversaries exploit the social media giant for its sheer size and trusted nature, making it the medium of choice for both inexperienced and sophisticated network hackers alike. For the adversary, the barriers to entry have never been lower, and the targets have never been more trusting and click-happy.”

Other security organizations confirm the findings and some of it comes from people simply being too trusting such as accepting friend requests from unfamiliar people.  McAfee discovered that employees became cybercrime victims on social media over other business applications.

While Facebook might be the number one platform to attract criminals.  Twitter is used to attack government organizations and other popular platforms are also dealing with loads of fake profiles.  It does not come as a surprise, considering Facebook is now the “Walt-Mart” of social media information.  What types of scams are people falling victim too?  Is it just stolen passwords and information or are they giving their personal information away?

Whitney Grace, August 18, 2015
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph

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