Facebook and security. Is it a marriage that has any legs?
The social networking giant today announced its partnership with a number of security vendors, including Sophos.
A Facebook blogger writes:
Nothing is more important to us than the safety of the people who use Facebook, and the security of their data...That’s why we’re thrilled to announce the Antivirus Marketplace and welcome Microsoft, McAfee, TrendMicro, Sophos, and Symantec to the Facebook Security family.
No matter how in love we are with Facebook, many of us would have kicked it to the curb if the bad outweighed the good, and some baddies started to dent Facebook's armour.
So Facebook came up with a great way to tackle the problem of widespread threats: jump between the sheets with the experts in the security industry.
Now Facebook and security aren't easy bedfellows. Facebook constantly needs to offer new bells and whistles to stay fresh and competitive. Its natural aim is increased sharing and connectivity.
Security specialists like Sophos offer protection, and they often do that by closing doors to anything potentially harmful. The security industry is essentially made up of internet sentinels keeping watch all the time and jumping out to protect their charges when something nasty rears up.
But they do say opposites attract...
So when Facebook came knocking, Sophos opened its doors wide. And smiled. Teamed up, they are much better able to catch and annihilate scams before they impact huge numbers of users.
This is how it works: Sophos's threat labs constantly collect and sort mountains of data on malicious and scammy links. Sharing this info with Facebook means that the social platform can get a heads up on scams before they become a problem for large numbers of users.
So, if Facebook gets wind of something dodgy spreading on its platform, they consult our vast database. And if it's found to be potentially malicious, they will alert the user.
But users also have a role to play if they want Facebook to remain the most popular hang out in town.
Think about it this way: even the sexiest of cars provide many safety features like brakes, airbags and seatbelts, but if we fail to take advantage of them and drive like dingbats, they're useless.
To better safeguard your account, make sure you choose a strong unique password for your Facebook account, and don't tell it to ANYONE. Look over the privacy settings regularly and carefully choose your configuration. Take care when downloading applications. Only befriend people you know. Report suspicious activity to Facebook.
And the Naked Security team will continue to do its part, alerting its community -- via its Facebook page and its award-winning security news site -- to bad stuff that sneaks up on Facebook.
Ultimately, both Facebook and Sophos want users safe and happy. And this partnership might mean that we are in a better place to achieve that aim, but only if we all do our part.
As an added bonus, Sophos is giving away its Sophos Anti-Virus for Mac: Home Edition – no strings attached. In fact, there are a number of free security tools you can check out.
So, here's to a fruitful relationship between Sophos and Facebook.
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So Sophos finally took the bribe and got in bed with FaceBook. I guess everyone does have their price.
NakedSecurity has been a great source of info for me, largely because Sophos hadn't prostituted themselves to FaceBook like almost everyone else had. How can we trust you from this point forward?
We don't have any plans to stop reporting about Facebook security and privacy issues.
How do I get another download for the protection. I couldn't finish download b/c they told me to uninstall what I had. When I went back to download protection it wouldn't let me. Said I already had my free download. :(
You can always get your free anti-virus for Mac download from http://www.sophos.com/freemacav
If you're having a problem with Facebook, I'm afraid you'll have to deal with them directly.
Yeesh, what a Debbie Downer.
This is actually a valid point. I think the easiest way to see if you can trust NakedSecurity going forward is to see if the partnership results in the content of this blog changing.
If you suddenly see Graham posting about how Facebook has saved his life, and Chet starts blogging about how everyone should sign up with Facebook because it's the best social media site ever, then you'll know something's up (and likely post about it in the comments). If you see articles about the latest Facebook scams and security issues, and pleas for people to take security seriously, then you'll know it's business as usual.
Hilarious headline guys! "... and other security vendors" :) Yeah, just a couple little guys, not worth mentioning in the headline :)
Well, if you mention everyone the headline ends up three miles long..
Surely Norton, McAfee and Trend all offer a free trial already, this is just a bigger carrot and surely Facebook get commission if there's a sale. No harm in that but this isn't really anything so great, there's decent free AVs out there without this. Sorry, not impressed.
Except you didn't read the article or you'd understand more than what you gleaned from the stock photo in the article. You missed the point entirely.
Sophos' software offer isn't a free *trial*. Its free *period*, and they've advertised on this blog before.
That's how I found out about it and I've been using it at home for a good while now.
How much commission do you make on something that's free?
I love that word "Nothing more important than safety" hope facebook team can do the best...
Congrats, Sophos! Keep up the good work! I've been using Sophos for Mac since it was released, and it has made several useful warnings and clean ups. Go, guys!
I don't use a Mac, but this is super great news.
Fooey on the cynics who think Sophos has sold out to Facebook. I don't believe it. If anything, this gives me some hope that Facebook will actually pay closer attention to what Sophos has been pleading with them to do all along...namely, implement a 100% opt-in policy for ALL of Facebook's features.
People are always bad-mouthing the profit motive, but companies who really understand it know that in the long run it's the only motivation that really works. You can't make a profit for very long by consistently screwing people. You have to give them something that they --- in their own subjective evaluation --- think is worth what they're paying for it. If you don't, eventually you won't have any customers. REAL profit is mutually beneficial.
There are lots of companies that are sufficiently enlightened to understand that the true nature of profit is mutual benefit. In my view, Sophos is one of them. Here's hoping that some of that enlightened perspective rubs off on Facebook. They could sure use some of it.