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Facebook’s Max Kelly talks security

By Andrew Redfern @ 11th August 2008 9:20 am

A blog post on Facebook’s staff blog has highlighted the battle they face to keep the popular social networking site safe for it’s users. Last week we reported on a new Facebook & Myspace based worm that installs itself onto people’s computers and spreads via posting on the Walls/Bulletin Boards of people’s friend’s profiles.

Max Kelly has added a warning to Facebook users : “Most people use the internet without being aware of the constant threat of hackers, spammers, and phishers. Due to the nature of the internet, and the nature of malicious software, most websites will at some point need to deal with patching a security hole. All good websites take these issues very seriously, since no one wants users to suffer. At Facebook, where people keep so much of their lives and information, we’ve built an amazing security team solely focused on making sure our users have a safe experience on the site.

The security team at Facebook is dedicated to investigating and auditing our own code for holes, as well as reaching out to people in an extended community to let us know if we’ve missed anything. If we get a report of a bug or a hole from a user, a security researcher, a reporter, blogger, or anyone, we check it out and fix it as quickly as possible. In fact, we appreciate it when help comes our way from the many security experts and organizations out there.”

He notes the threat posed by the new worm saying “we spent most of last night working on a fix for a worm, which was targeting people on Facebook and placing messages on Walls urging users to view a video that pretends to be hosted on a Google or YouTube website. We’ve identified and blocked the ability to link to the malicious websites from anywhere on Facebook. Less than .002 percent of people on Facebook have been affected, all of whom we notified and suggested steps to remove the malware.”

It is a huge challenge for the security team. If the spam situation were allowed to get out of hand it could have a hugely detrimental effect on it’s strong position in the social networking market at a time when it is looking to consolidate and expand the online advertising side of their operation.

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