Cyber-spies allegedly based in China have been accused of targeting NATO’s top-ranking military commander using Facebook.
Attackers created fake accounts on the social networking site that appeared to belong to Admiral James Stavridis, Supreme Allied Commander Europe (Saceur) in a bid to harvest information from his friends.
Senior British Defence staffs are understood to have accepted ‘friend requests’ from the bogus account, according a report on The Telegraph UK.
Apparently, NATO is aware of the bogus accounts pretending to belong to Stavridis, but refused to divulge information regarding the people behind the attack. But, it is understood that the evidence points toward “state-sponsored individuals in China.”
The report says that although it is unlikely that any genuine military secrets were found, it is not known how much information was harvested, and any personal details could be used to create profiles of targets for blackmail or espionage.
Following the incident, NATO is said to have advised senior officers and officials to open their own social networking pages to prevent a repeat of the security breach.
The fake profile had been reportedly taken down by Facebook.
Do you think, having an FBI agent as a friend on Facebook is cool? Maybe, but all the criminals boasting about their exploits will be in for a shock.
Us federal law enforcement agents are said to be going undercover with false online profiles in the social-networking sites – including Facebook, Linkedln, MySpace and Twitter – to search for evidence and witnesses in criminal cases, and in some instances, track suspects, and communicate with suspects and gather private information and communication map.
An internal Justice Department document obtained by the civil liberties group, Electronic Frontier Foundation, in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, describes the value of social networking sites to the government investigators.
According to the Associate Press, the document says Facebook is “often cooperative with emergency requests” from federal investigators while Twitter’s layers demand a warrant or subpoena before it will turn over customer information.
The document makes clear that U.S. agents are already logging on surreptitiously to exchange messages with suspects, identify a target’s friends or relatives and browse private information such as postings, personal photographs and video clips.
Among other purposes: Investigators can check suspects’ alibis by comparing stories told to police with tweets sent at the same time about their whereabouts. Online photos from a suspicious spending spree — people posing with jewelry, guns or fancy cars — can link suspects or their friends to robberies or burglaries, according to the source.
[Source: The Associate Press]
Despite repeated warnings and advices to stay alert keep personal data in private on social-networking sites, Facebook users are still very much laid backed when it comes to security.
IT security vendor, Sophos, created two falsely named accounts – using anagrams of the words “false identity” and “stolen identity”, for its research.
One of them, Daisy Feletin (21, single), was represented by a picture of a rubber duck toy and the other, Dinette Stonily (56, married), with two cats lying on a rug. Each of them sent out friend request to 100 randomly-selected contacts in their age group. After two weeks, 46% accepted Daisy Feletin while 41% accepted Dinette Stonily plus 8 users befriended Dinette on thier own.
Once connected, the fake profiles were able to access a significant amount of personal information from their new friends: 89% birthdays, 100% emails, 46% of their friends and family data.
“Ten years ago, getting access to this sort of detail would probably have taken a con-artist or an identify thief several weeks, and have required the on-the-spot services of a private investigator. Sadly, these days, many social networkers are handing over their life story on a plate,” according to Sophos on its blog.
Take 30 minutes and keep your information safe, don’t feel burdened or stress to check out the Facebook Privacy Settings, or at least keep the must have privacy settings in place to keep yourself safe.
