If you're on Facebook, Twitter, myspace or any other social networking site, you could be the next victim. It will come to you as a friendly package..it starts with a friend updating his or her status and slowly raveled his/her cruel intentions. FBI alerts..!!
That's because more cyberthieves are targeting increasingly popular social networking sites that provide a gold mine of personal information, according to the FBI. Since 2006, nearly 3,200 account hijacking cases have been reported to the Internet Crime Complaint Center, a partnership between the FBI, the National White Collar Crime Center and the Bureau of Justice Assistance.

It starts with a friend updating his or her status or sending you a message with an innocent link or video. Maybe your friend is in distress abroad and needs some help.All you have to do is click.

When the message or link is opened, social network users are lured to fake Web sites that trick them into divulging personal details and passwords. The process, known as a phishing attack or malware, can infiltrate users' accounts without their consent.
Once the account is compromised, the thieves can infiltrate the list of friends or contacts and repeat the attack on subsequent victims. Social networking sites show there is ample opportunity to find more victims; the average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site.

"Security is a constant arms race," said Simon Axten, an associate for privacy and public policy at Facebook. "Malicious actors are constantly attacking the site, and what you see is actually a very small percentage of what's attempted."
As some social networking sites experience monstrous growth, they are becoming a new -- and extremely lucrative -- frontier for cybercrime. Facebook says it has 300 million users, nearly the size of the U.S. population, and it continues to attract users outside the college student niche. From February 2008 to February 2009, Twitter, a micro-blogging site where users post 140-character messages known as tweets, grew 1,382 percent to more than 7 million users.

"They [cybercriminals] are very adept to using social engineering," said Donald DeBold, director of threat research for CA, an Internet security company. "Your friend is in trouble traveling in another country, 'I lost my wallet. I need help.' They exploit the curiosity aspect out of human nature."

A few decades ago, malicious software and viruses were usually the result of a prank, but Internet security experts say today's attacks are profit-driven. A study from the Indiana University in 2005 discovered that phishing attacks on social networks operated with a 70 percent success rate. These users had fallen for the scam, opened the foreign link and released personal information.

Cybercriminals are employing phishing and malware attacks for a number of reasons, including trying to redirect users to sites where profit is fueled by the number of visitors. They also try to elicit private information like passwords and bank account numbers to perform scams.

Early this year, Twitter experienced several phishing attacks in which a Web page that looked identical to the widely recognized light blue Twitter page was a hoax. The company warned users to double-check the URL to ensure they were visiting the correct site.

The Internet Crime Complaint Center received more than 72,000 complaints about Internet fraud in 2008 that were referred to law enforcement agencies for further investigation. These cases involved financial losses amounting to $264.6 million, an increase from 2007. Each person lost an average of $931.

"Most of us would want to help a friend in need, but if it's an online friend, and they want you to wire money, you should double-check," FBI spokesman Jason Pack said.

Security experts said it makes sense that cybercriminals are turning to social networking sites. Personal information is abundant on sites like Facebook and MySpace. Each time users give out valuable information like birth dates or addresses, they could be providing hints about their password, security experts say.

The American Civil Liberties Union has expressed concern about the information visible through Facebook quizzes and applications.

"They'll have access to all that information, so they can sell it, they can share it, they can do an awful lot with it," Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for privacy-related issues with the ACLU, told CNN.com in September.

Many Internet security experts consider the first virus attack on the PC to have occurred in 1986. By the early 1990s, viruses transmitted on floppy disks became ubiquitous. When the World Wide Web became widely available that same decade, viruses, worms and malware became problems in e-mail accounts, frustrating users who clicked on messages thought to be legitimate.

In the new millennium, the most common form of malware attack has become known as drive-by downloads. While surfing on Google or Yahoo, spyware or a computer virus is automatically and invisibly downloaded on a computer, requiring no user interaction for the computer to be infected.

"We are on the verge from shifting from the Web being the No. 1 victim of infecting to social network," said Mikko H. Hypponen, chief of research technology at F-Secure Corp. His company sells anti-virus software and malware protection programs. "It's going to get a lot worse before it gets better."

Social networks are fighting the aggressive attacks from cybercriminals. Most sites have information pages dedicated to educating users about the risks of Internet scams. Users can become a fan of "Facebook Security" and receive updates on how to protect their accounts. One of the most common pieces of advice given by security experts is to change passwords frequently.

Facebook has also developed complex automated systems that detect compromised accounts. They spot and freeze accounts that are sending an unusually high number of messages to their friends. Company security officials said Facebook is a closed system, which can be helpful in erasing phony messages from all accounts.

At News Corporation's MySpace.com, the company creates blacklists of phony accounts to prevent people from clicking on a faulty link. Hemanshu Nigam, first chief security officer for MySpace, said the firm warns about suspicious links and educates users about the harm phishing and malware attacks can bring.

"We are prepared for them," he said.

Here are few easy steps How to protect yourself against scams:
(Information provided by FBI and Internet security experts)

1. Change your passwords frequently

2. Adjust Web site privacy settings

3. Be selective when adding friends

4. Limit access to your profile to contacts you trust

5. Disable options such as photo sharing

6. Be careful what you click on

7. Familiarize yourself with the security and privacy settings

8. Learn how to report a compromised account

9. Use security software that updates automatically



Source: cnn.com

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In recent days, we've spent time with a number of veterans of the social networking business. One of the surprising things we have learned is how much experience these people now have, and how much they agree with each other about some of the basics of the business.

Just a few years ago, when companies like Friendster were emerging and outfits like Twitter still did not exist, social networking was a little-understood phenomenon. Experience has taught us a lot, however, and practices are starting to standardize. That is not to say that something new will not pop up, or that no new business will be created; this is still capitalism, with plenty of room to surprise. Whatever does happen next, however, the emerging rules will likely play a role, either in system construction or creative destruction.

Here are six points everyone seems to agree on...

1. When you have scale, it's good to fail.

When you have millions of users, you can, and should, experiment with some small percentage of them all the time. The field is so new that there are no set rules, and failure is tolerable for the sake of a decent feedback loop. "Things change so fast, you are best off just doing things by trial and error," says Gina Bianchini, founder and chief executive of Ning, a service that provides a template of design tools for people to build their own social networks. About 5,000 networks are created every day on Ning, and 80% of them are short-lived or fail. That still gives Ning 250,000 networks on which it can place ads, watch behavior or charge for premium services.

2. Seek the unique.

There are too many social networks, too many styles of discovery, commenting, sharing and all the other aspects of participation. People are fatigued by choice. All is made worthwhile by finding a group that is as passionate about some specific area of your life as you are. That may be work, a la LinkedIn, but don't expect most people to socialize there. That may be family, like with Facebook, but you tend not to see such a broad range of behaviors. The third aspect of most lives--hobbies and interests--is where you encounter the greatest variety. If there is room to grow a new social network, it will have to center on a passion, something people feel is particularly true of their own personalities.

3. The default position is rampant suspicion.

Trust is possibly the most valuable currency on a social network. At its best, people are giving up important parts of their identity. Doing so successfully, so that fans, friends, and like-minded strangers respect them, binds users closely to the network. That loyalty is perpetually at risk, however, and network designers say users' worries are manifest when they don't understand something about the social network.

"In the absence of information, there is an assumption of conspiracy," says Jay Adelson, one of the founders of Digg, a social news site. That may be simply because social networks are so new, or that the medium of computer networks lends itself to fears of anonymous control. The solution, from a provider's viewpoint, is to be as clear as possible about why you are doing something, even when it seems obvious to you.

4. Trust is at stake, so make things opaque.

Paradoxically, being open also involves refusing to disclose certain things, particularly things about how ranking and filtering systems work. "All algorithms get hacked by somebody," says Kevin Laws, a former executive with Epinions, a social rating site that was purchased by Shopping.com. "You have to remove the transparency around how your algorithms actually work." The audience can only trust the system if they know that the system cannot be gamed, and that means they can't know everything.

5. Esteem is how you gather value.

French playwright Moliere compared writing to prostitution: You start off doing it for love, then for a few friends and finally for money. The history of the social Web is basically the opposite. Sites like Epinions and Digg began by paying people money to comment on things, and found nothing but problems--some people gamed the system, while others did not trust the results. As in open source software, a lot of the positive motivation to participate comes from the recognition you receive from other participants for doing a good job. Money just confuses things.

6. Secret names were made for flames. To raise the bar, say who you are.

When Digg started, Adelson recalls, "anonymity was key; there was a sense people needed privacy. Now people are used to living in public." Part of that may be an effect of Facebook, a wildly successful site with very little anonymity. One-third of Digg's new users come from the Facebook Connect service, and these folks are used to being seen by others. They tend to behave more responsibly as a result, and may get better value in terms of how much others trust them. Down the road, they are also likely to be targeted with more personal ads--whether that is an intrusion or a value-add is a rule that has yet to be worked out.

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Kelly Katrina HIldebrandt and Kelly Carl Hildebrandt are now tying the knot, after she found him on Facebook...!!

Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt and Kelly Carl Hildebrandt

Facebook is a social network designed to connect people and link them together whether they be friends, business associates, family or potential couples. It’s an unusual way how this couple met, but we are happy for the newly weds and hopes their Facebook found love lasts a lifetime.

According to the Associated Press, it all started when the 20-year-old Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt was up one night, curious to see if anyone shared her name.

When she found only one match, 24-year-old Kelly Carl Hildebrandt from Lubbock, Texas, she had no idea he would turn out to be her soul mate.

Kelly Carl Hildebrandt found Kelly Katrina to be “pretty cute” after reading the first message she sent him that reportedly read, “Hi. We had the same name. Thought it was cool.”

Although the Kellys were hesitant to date at first concerned they might be related some how, the two kept in touch exchanging emails. Pretty soon they were calling each other daily on the phone talking for hours.

Three months went by, and Kelly Carl went to visit her in Florida. It was around then that Kelly
Carl says he “fell head over heels” for Kelly Katrina, according to the AP.

Neither Kelly ever dreamed their fun online friendship would lead to a wedding, but Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt found her engagement ring buried under the beach in a treasure chest last December! Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt calls it “God’s timing” saying that “He planned it out just perfect.”

Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt told the Associated Press that the other Kelly had all of the “certain qualities that a guy has to have,” including all the ones she was looking for, naturally.

The couple has scheduled an October wedding, where they are expecting around 100 guests to come celebrate their newfound love at South Florida’s Lighthouse Point Yacht & Racquet Club.

Following the wedding, Kelly Katrina plans to continue working toward a degree at a local community college, while he works in financial services. Their home will be in South Florida.

Confusion tends to dog this same-named couple, who had a little bit of trouble already when their travel agent disregarded one of the Kellys ticket, thinking it was a duplicate. The cruise vacation was nearly canceled from the misunderstanding.

Wedding invitations were a bit of a problem as well, as the couple tried to determine how they would establish which Kelly was which. In the end, they decided to include their middle names.

The Hildebrandt couple has ensured everyone that the name Kelly will not be carried down to their future children. Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt rules out the idea saying to the AP that they are
“definitely not going to name [their] kids Kelly.”

Congratulations Kelly Hildebrandt. Both of you!






Source: collegenews

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It took Facebook five years to get to 150 million active users, a lightning-fast growth rate by any measure. But like track phenom Usain Bolt, the world's No. 1 social networking website atomized its own speed record this year by going from 150 million users to 300 million users in a little over nine months.

Facebook today announced cracking 300 million users worldwide and becoming "cash-flow positive." The world's largest social network had set a goal of being cash-flow positive sometime in 2010. "I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term," wrote Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a blog post.

Facebook hit 250 million users precisely two months ago, and 200 million users just three months before that.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said today that the company had become cash-flow positive ahead of
schedule (he had originally guessed "sometime in 2010") and called the milestone important "because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term."

We're also succeeding at building Facebook in a sustainable way. Earlier this year, we said we expected to be cash flow positive sometime in 2010, and I'm pleased to share that we achieved this milestone last quarter. This is important to us because it sets Facebook up to be a strong independent service for the long term.-Said Zuckerberg

He also said Facebook is in the black as of the last fiscal quarter:Good for them. Too bad for
anyone who was hoping for an IPO.

Earlier this year, Zuckerberg also said the company expects to see 70% year-over-year revenue
growth in 2009. Facebook board member Mark Andreessen recently estimated the company would hit $500 million in revenue this year.

The site continues to expand its audience at a torrid pace, adding 50 million users just since July
and doubling in size since the start of 2009. About 70% of its users are outside the U.S.

CEO Mr.Zuckerberg said in an interview with Bloomberg last month that Facebook hoped to increase its work force by 50 percent by the end of the year, but stressed that "the thing I want to remind people of is we're way closer to the beginning than the end."

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WHILE swimming in the endless sea of news, blogs, social networks and mindless ballyhoo - one has to wonder how to make it stop.

The internet seems to be all-powerful and indestructible - but in theory it can be destroyed in a number of outlandish ways. check out how could you do that ...

1. Cut the cables

To destroy the internet, a strategic starting point would be to destroy the undersea cables that connect every continent.

You could use submarines with giant scissors - but the cables are not that difficult to destroy. Earthquakes, fishing trawlers and shark bites have been known to cause breaks.

2. Cyber war

Cyberspace could become the battlefield of choice for countries wishing to gain the upper hand in an international arena.

Nations could deploy armies of hackers instead of armed military forces to disrupt communications, launch unstoppable viruses and take out sections of the internet. When two superpowers go to cyberwar, the cost will not be in blood, but in 404's.

3. Subvert DNS

Security researcher Dan Kaminsky last year stumbled across a vulnerability in the Domain Name System (DNS) that had the potential to destroy the internet's foundations.

The security flaw allowed hackers to potentially reroute users to any website or block access.

According to Securosis analyst Rich Mogull: "You'd have the internet, but it wouldn't be the internet you expect. (Hackers) would control everything."

4. Eliminate the hardware

Destroying the hardware that allows internet access would be improbable, but not impossible.

This would mean that every single online communications system would have to go down.

One way would be disabling electronics with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) within a 10km radius. It's not effective on a worldwide scale, but if the idea can be manipulated for a global EMP then it might be feasible

5. Censorship

Both the internet and the World Wide Web were designed as open forums for free ideas and expression, but countries have pushed to censor objectionable materials.

Countries such as China have implemented strong censorship in an attempt to neutralize political opposition. This is dubbed "The Great Firewall of China".

Although censoring the internet only affects parts of the global community, it destroys the idea on which the network was created

6. Botnets

A botnet is the name given to a collection of infected computers (or "zombies") that automatically distribute malicious software, viruses, spam and trojans in an attempt to infect other computers.

The Conficker worm came from a particularly nasty botnet estimated to have burrowed its way into almost nine million computers worldwide. It had the potential of producing 10 billion articles of spam per day

7. Spam

Spam is an inevitable consequence of the internet with advertisers, marketers and Nigerian scams all trying to exploit users.

Spammers all over the world use thousands of zombie computers and in 2007, SophosLabs found that over a quarter of the world's spam originated in the US.

Not only is spam incredibly annoying, it may be used to transmit viruses, trojans and malicious software with the intent of corrupting more computers, turning them into zombies

8. Unstoppable virus

Similar to the scenes in Terminator 3, a self-replicating computer virus with the potential to distribute itself globally and become invulnerable to destruction may not only spell the end of the internet, but the end of humanity

9. Hack the servers

Internet service providers (ISPs) link customers to the world wide web. If they were taken down systematically, many people would lose online access.

This would essentially starve the web of users, content and traffic..

10. Switch off

Switching off means that if everyone connected to a system that accesses the world wide web turns off, it would become a barren wasteland of unclicked hyperlinks and unwatched videos.

So instead of viewing technology galleries you might actually be doing your work

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The internet is filled with threats real and imagined, from malicious hackers to government censors.

Beyond the hacks and cracks — and in celebration of Sunshine Week — we've compiled a brief list of some of the biggest public and private threats facing the internet.

1. Warrantless Government Monitoring : Following the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the practice of wiretapping all internet traffic began in the United States with the Bush administration, and is now being defended in court by the Obama administration. All of the nation's major internet service providers are accused of funneling Americans' online traffic to the National Security Agency without warrants.

2. Private Censorship : From the mundane to the frightening, the examples run rampant. Wikipedia, the world's most trafficked online reference tool, is subject to shameful spin from trusted names of news organizations to the not so trustworthy engines of commerce. Among the examples, The Boston Globe enhanced the biography of a columnist while deleting information about his alleged plagiarism. Diebold excised an entire section critical of the company's voting machines.

3. Government Censorship : Reporters Without Borders reported last week that 12 nations — China, Burma, North Korea, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Cuba and Tunisia restrict internet access and often prosecute users for what they post online.

Even in democratic countries, censorship rears its ugly head. On Thursday, a secret blacklist surfaced detailing 2,395 webpages the Australian government is planning to filter from the internet. While about half of them dealt with illegal pornography, the remainder did not. Some of the sites were about gambling, dentists and even dog kennels.

In December, Wikipedia couldn't be edited by users in Britain. The entire site was put on a blacklist because it linked to the 1976 album cover of Virgin Killer by the Scorpions, which featured a nude young girl.

In the United States, a federal judge last year blocked WikiLeaks from operating in the country for a week after the renegade site posted allegedly stolen documents detailing individuals' Swiss bank accounts.

4. Deep Packet Inspection : Several U.S. internet service providers, including giants like Comcast and Cox Communications, have started inspecting the contents of internet packets, a practice (.pdf) allowing them to monitor, filter and ultimately control the traffic that passes through their pipes. In addition, online advertising services like NebuAd are paying ISPs to let it eavesdrop on web users via DPI.

5. ISP Tiered Pricing : Major ISPs, including AT&T, Time Warner and Comcast have moved or are gravitating toward pricing services based on the amount of bandwidth individuals use. Theoretically, the plans could unlock the internet door to low-income users. But we suspect the plans are designed to increase profits for ISPs as bandwidth use skyrockets — all of which may have a chilling effect on internet usage.
6. Recording Industry Association of America Proposes "Three-Strikes" Policy : The record labels are pushing for ISPs to ban service to customers the RIAA claims are file-sharing copyrighted music. Overseas, industry groups like the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry are pursuing similar efforts.

7. Digital Millennium Copyright Act Abuses : Unwarranted YouTube takedown notices by misguided copyright holders comes immediately to mind — including assertions by Universal Music that it need not consider whether a video, under the DMCA, makes a "fair use" of the copyrighted works in question. Google says 57 percent of takedown notices it received were sent by business targeting competitors and 37 percent were not valid copyright claims.

Note : Tell us what you think are the most threatening threats to the internet...

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