Anti-Social Behaviour

There was a time when social networking sites were a friendly space. Sure, there were a few incidents with some guy that you've never met sending you a stream of friend requests but on the whole...it was a happy cyberspace. But as the old saying goes...where there's space, there's room for trouble.

All the idle hands seem to be making light work of all the hacking that can be done. Facebook, MySpace and the myriad of other social networking sites have become something of a playground for cyber-criminals. Ah, for the days when your purse got stolen and you had to re-apply for your ID and change your locks and cancel your credit cards. These days, all your information is right there in front of your criminals, name, address, birthdays, star signs, employment details, hobbies, email and phone numbers. We've never been more accessible to evil. Good times.

Now, before you go adding privacy accounts to anything and everything...listen to the rest of the story. Early this week I wrote about the Campus Party taking place in Valencia, Spain. Its one of the world's biggest online entertainment events and has been taking place annually since 1997. Its the meeting place for internet enthusiasts and a sort of cyber church warning users against the dangers that hackers present in the social networking world.

Meet Koobface. "Koob" for those of you who don't know is "Book" backwards, so "Facebook" in reverse. While Facebook is all about spreading the love, Koobface is a vicious virus that has been infecting users of Facebook and Twitter since 2008.

As with all virus there are a number of variants or strains, in this case, more than 4000 have been detected. The virus hijacks accounts of users on the mentioned SNS and sends messages steering you to nasty sites containing malware. FYI...malware equals "malicious software often designed to infiltrate a computer system for illicit purposes.

So its counts in real life and in cyber space now too...know who your friends are. That's usually how they'll get you...Koobface will send you a friend request or another invitation, either to update software or download applications and the like. The social networking sites being affected have assured their users that incidents have been very few and that they do take precautions to ensure that their space remains your space.

One thing to remember is that most hackers aren't just hacking to make your life miserable, there are Cyber Mafias out there (not kidding) who hack for profit. Cyber Mafias have been identified in Brazil, China, Russia and the Ukraine. and they're making a killing. So do yourself a favour, know who your friends are, if it seems suspicious, it is and report people who aren't playing the game, the friendly social networking way.

Hackers or no hackers, social networking is one of the ways we can stay in touch. Visit www.hummba.com and discover a whole new way to see the world.