Popular BBC Program Says Facebook Has A Security Loophole

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This is what the cyber doomsday proponents have been shouting hoarse about. And have we been listening? According to the BBC technology program Click, Facebook users are at danger of losing their personal details to hackers. Our normal Facebook habit generally involves logging on and messaging our friends. An attractive feature of Facebook are the applications most of them third party which we can install to have fun. From daily quotes to scrabble, their are a plethora of them. And this is probably just the very reason that Facebook is popular.

But now these very applications could be the trojans we should be wary of. If evidence from the BBC programme Click is accurate, hackers can use these very 'enjoyable' applications to cut short our fun by stealing our personal data. Computer programmers at BBC developed an application, which they used to hack Facebook and steal personal data of four users and all their friends on the social network. The programme said that it’s still not certain that application creators are stealing data through this method, but the ease by which it can be done is a clear and present danger for all of us who log on.

Facebook on its part says that the responsibility to add the tiny programs to a profile is on the user and advices caution. Paul Docherty, Technical Director of Portcullis Security which is a leading UK specialist in IT Security services, says,

"Facebook's terms and conditions legally cover it against any liability,” but he added that "Morally, Facebook has acted naively."

The third party applications and their developers are governed by Facebook's terms and conditions, but as we all know 'loophole' is a word which we always fondly use with 'legal'. And so would the hackers who are after your data and mine.

So, what should Facebook do in the face of such a claim? A libel suit definitely wouldn't be the answer. A stricter policy and better firewalls definitely would be. In the mean time just don't share your bank account number on Facebook.