Facebook has many layers of security and yet again there is an addition of another layer of security, which is basically to fight malware on the social network. Facebook would be partnering Websense, a Web security gateway software company, which would be to check links its users post. The main purpose as noted was to safeguard the Facebook users from those links which would lead to malware and malicious websites. The two companies announced that they would come up with a new Websense’s technology to serve their purpose.
The technology would build on Facebook’s existing systems to stop users from clicking on links without having clear knowledge about its trustworthiness, related to the destination. After this technology comes into play, the lick clicked by a user will be checked against the Websense database.
This technology might make processes look longer as if it determines that a link is malicious, there would be redirected to a page having three options:
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continue at your own risk
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return to the previous screen
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get more information on why it was flagged as suspicious
The text as displayed on the specified page would show up as posted below:
This partnered update seems to be a better one in the way it warns a user as compared to its previous warnings. One can look at the image posted above that there is a blue “Return to previous page” button is in the bottom-right corner, which is comparatively much bigger than the “Ignore this warning” link in the bottom-left corner. This would help the ignorant Facebook users to think before they proceed, but for the tech-savvy users, it is easier to proceed as they would know what they are doing.
This new security service provided to Facebook is powered by the Websense ThreatSeeker Cloud, which is an advanced classification and malware identification platform that analyzes Web content in real-time. Talking about its proprietary technology, Advanced Classification Engine (ACE) powers it. This would help in blocking not only the known malware sites, but also those which the system has never encountered before.
This sparks a hope that now Facebook would be able to prevent a number of scams that go viral on the social network. However, it would not be able to completely curb the problem, but it would still be appreciable if the number gets cut down significantly. The real problem is that as Facebook has more than 800 million users, a shared malicious link can be shared to a number of users at a time and thus it spreads widely.
Dan Rubinstein, Facebook product manager for Site Integrity said that the social networking giant deeply care for the users and are working on to protect the users from potentially malicious content on the Internet. He continues saying, “We are excited about our partnership with Websense to provide industry leading tools to help our users protect themselves.”
Briefing about Websense, it can be said that the company has been into the analysis and classification the Internet for more than years and with Facebook partnering the company, its profile will reach a new high. Dan Hubbard, Websense Chief Technology Officer said that Facebook would benefit from the collaboration as the same core technology will be used in the process, which is used in the market-leading Websense TRITON™ enterprise security solutions. He continued saying, “Every day, Websense Security Labs works to discover, investigate, and report on advanced Internet threats that are designed to circumvent antivirus products. By providing real-time protection from malware, spyware, inappropriate content, data leaks, and spam, we make it safe for people and businesses to use the web.”