Comments on: Hackers target Facebook apps

Hackers have turned their attention to Facebook's hundreds of independent applications. The results are not terribly surprising, but do not tell a good tale.

[KeeganHill]

Sorry, but why do hackers do such childish things? I understand the ones that attack businesses for money, because the incentive is money. But what do they get out of Facebook? Nothing, except maybe a stupid little prank. These hackers need to grow up.

[AppleSuxLeo]

This just in ! Gone in 2 minutes: Mac gets hacked first in contest Macs are swiss cheese. It`s time to start hacking Macs.

[firewallender]

"According to a recent article in 2600" - If I recall 1600 brought this up in December 2007.

You can get a back issue at: http://2600hacker.stores.yahoo.net/2007.html

[firewallender]

Sorry, 2600, typo there...

[junxie]

Link to http://tips-notebook.blogspot.com to this news... tanks

[dbargen]

This shouldn't be surprising to anyone. FB users are notoriously quick to 'install' web apps with their account with little regard for the way they're made. This would be an exteremely successful way to profile people's addresses for SPAM, seeing how they have groups dedicated to this or that, and people's lists of favorite this or that.

Rolling back apps on FB would be one of the defining ways to improve the network for what it should be: a social info network. However, these apps keep ppl's eyeballs on the site for many times the amount of time, so that isn't likely to happen without extreme pressure.

[dbargen]

In reply to the 'swiss cheesed' mac, it was done using malicious code on a site after trying and failing to hack it direcly, and we don't know if it was running an updated version of safari. Anyone with common sense could have avoided that pitfall.

[rgnitz]

Ha... I saw this problem coming five months ago. Take a look at the post I wrote.

http://deftlabs.com/2007/10/facebook-application-security/

[outers55]

User data is incredibly valuable, so I can see why it would benefit hackers. The thing that bothers me is that it sounds like I don't even have to install the app (and maybe not even someone on my friends list) to be compromised. This seriously shakes my faith in Facebook as someone who has always been very selective about who I add to my friends list. Also, CNET has their own facebook app, one of the few I actually installed. I hope they are doing a good job protecting my information and that of my friends.

[private-internet]

It will only get worst before it gets better ..

[Micr0ft]

HI Chris, great article. I linked to it here: http://michaelmknight.co.uk/main/?p=47 I hope you don't mind.

Thanks

Mike

[gummycaramelapple]

Hackers seem to get away with everything... and ruin everyone's fun playing the games. There are many videos on youtube that teach people how to hack into the games on facebook. If any of you have played any of the games on facebook such as, "geochallenge" or "who has the biggest brain?", then I think you understand what I'm talking about. From my experience, it's best to not take chances and avoid using the applications on facebook alltogether.