Los Angeles — On the heels of a massive PR shitstorm, popular social media outfit Facebook on Thursday announced that they have partnered with the Web of Trust, a community driven warning service provider to help users avoid clicking on dubious internet links to ensure that your profile stays shiny and clean.
Though Facebook already has a system that automatically checks for malware and spam-ridden links, but the social media powerhouse is releasing several new security features in association with Web of Trust, which is designed to protect users from malware and from getting their accounts hijacked.
A page from the Facebook website is seen in Singapore May 11, 2011. Credit: (Reuters/Tan Shung Sin)
The new warning service by Helsinki-based Web of Trust (WOT) is a community driven service that designates websites in the categories such as trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. From now on, all outgoing links on Facebook will be screened to boost security for its more than 500 million users, amid growing concerns of online scams, spam and malware and protect its users from accessing malicious or dangerous websites.
The service is being adopted by millions to verify a website’s reputation before the site is visited. WOT’s software assesses the reputation of 31 million web pages and updates the ratings twice an hour, based on feedback from some 20 million users. The browser extensions handle those checks automatically and display notifications to the user that a site’s reputation is not the best.
Facebook users may see an intermediary page such as the one below when they click on an outgoing link on the social media networking site. The notification reads:
Clement Genzmer, one of the Facebook security engineers, posted this morning that Facebook has updated a large number of security features, including improved protection from link and “like” button “clickjacking,” notifications for malicious code pasted in address bars, and more sensitive login approvals from third-party sites, including security codes to confirm your cell phone number when prompted.
Facebook is also functioning with browsers like IE 9 to fix bugs and loopholes that allow spammers to take advantage of Facebook users.
First, the site will show warnings when users are about to be tricked by clickjacking and cross-site scripting (XSS) attacks in which people are often asked to cut and paste Javascript or another type of code into their browser Web address bar in order to see a video or a link to an interesting news story and instead end up spamming their friends.
Interestingly, a scam was circulating yesterday in which Facebook users were inadvertently commenting on what looked like a news site with details of the iPhone 5. Clicking on the link leads to a page with a captcha window and if it is clicked the spam is then spread on a user’s Facebook page. Another one was spreading today that urged people to verify their accounts by clicking on something. Facebook was quickly removing those posts.
Facebook users can override the warning to visit the page, get additional information about the warning by clicking on the learn more link, or go back to the page they were previously on.
With the new feature, which is an enhancement to its existing safety-scanning system, a click on a link to a low-reputation website prompts a warning message. The ratings are based on the input of some 20 million people and data from information security companies that blacklist harmful websites.
Facebook declined comment on the volume of security attacks and the value of the deal with WOT was not disclosed. Although the warnings are currently added on Facebook US. Other countries will follow suit in the coming week after which the new security system will be available globally.
The integration of Facebook should give Web of Trust a noticeable boost and could double the company’s popularity and user base in short time.