Cyber criminals target Facebookers

LONDON: Social networking giant Facebook has been hit by hackers looking to paw upon users' valuable information.

According to security experts, the site has faced five different security threats in the past seven days.

Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro, revealed that Facebook had been besieged with four malicious applications along with a new variant of the Koobface virus.

These rogue applications try to rob saleable data from the profiles of those who open the link, whose malicious nature remained hidden on social network sites.

"This is not just restricted to Facebook. It's a growing trend. Though I'm surprised it's taken so long for social sites to be targeted," he said.

Ferguson further suggested that the free-access website should consider policing applications.



However, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg declined the possibility in preference for an open system.

In a Radio 1 Newsbeat interview, he said: "Our philosophy is that having an open system anyone can participate in is generally better."

Meanwhile, blogger Graham Cluley, also senior technology consultant at anti-virus software developers Sophos, said: "One of the problems is that Facebook allows anybody to write an application and third party applications are not vetted before they are released to the public.

"Even as Facebook stamps out one malignant application, it can pop up in another place."