Social Networking – In The ‘Line of Fire’ Again
Let me admit honestly, I worship Social Networking; and it has changed my life for good.
But, it does become frustrating when day in and day out on a million sites we read that the social media is harmful for us and a plethora of reasons attached to it.
Tell me something – all you social media enthusiasts and people who earn their daily bread online; are you really afraid of putting information about yourself online ? Or, don’t you know that if you do so, then where should you draw the line?
But, our realm comes in the line of fire again, and this time it is the cyber criminals who are to be blamed for it. There has been a gradual shift from desktop-based applications to Web-based ones, particularly those on social networking sites, and this has presented a new space to get attacked. Koobface — a type of malware and said to be the largest Web 2.0 botnet — rides this new means of propagation. Mr Abhinav Karnwal, Product Marketing Manager (APEC), Trend Micro, says, “Koobface is composed of various components, each with specific functionalities. While most malware cram their functionalities into one file, Koobface divides each capability into different files that work together to form Koobface botnet”.
This has got a modular design which helps it propagate to other social networking sites such as Twitter and others through its unique capability system. There hasn’t been any stopping as it has been more than a year that this was first tracked and it is still going strong.
Business Line states some simple tips to keep children safe -
- Set reasonable expectations about which sites they can visit, how much time they are allowed to spend online and what type of information they are allowed to post;
- Teach children about basic online safety guidelines, such as protecting their privacy (including passwords), avoiding in-person meetings with people they meet online and being careful about what they post;
- Support critical thinking and civil behaviour. Tell them online bullying and harassment of peers is no different from direct abuse;
- Be aware of time spent online by keeping computers in shared areas of the house;
- Ask children to share their profiles and blogs with you;
- Set privacy settings to secure. Privacy settings within social networking sites allow children to control who can see their profiles and personal information;
- Advise children to never divulge personal information for cyber criminals can use personal information from social networking sites such as birth date, pets’ name, maiden names, school names — to hack into financial accounts and other online facilities;
- Keep software up-to-date. Download security software updates to combat the latest Web threats;
- Tell children to avoid clicking on unknown or suspicious links;
- Tell them to be smart while using mobile phones and never to share their number with strangers or post it anywhere on the Internet.
We have heard about all these tips before but, there is an interesting analogy as to whether these are actually harmful to children or not. Read more about it here.
On the whole, social networking to me are not “bad” or “evil”; but they can be in the “line of fire” more often. However, my point of view is very simple that they are, or have the potential to be, harmful. Exposing information to the countless eyes of the internet presents some very real risks to personal security. More so, when you are a newbie and don’t know where to draw the line. There has been various evidences of it’s increased use by children and they do have the capacity to substitute ‘real’ social development with a ‘virtual’ replacement that will act as a hindrance to the social development of the user.
All said and done, in my heart I still say – “All Hail Social Networking”.
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oh – let the children decide! I wonder why so harsh some bad critics are???