Twitter Breach Emphasizes Need for Common Sense on Web
In response to a bug that spread through Twitter this morning (Sept. 21), a social media entrepreneur is urging people to exhibit a certain level of web smarts when navigating networking sites.
“People have to understand when they’re participating in online social networks, they should act no differently than they would in real life,” said Michael Hussey, founder and CEO of PeekYou, a people-search engine with a database of more than 230 million users. “You have to ask yourself, ‘Is this content I’d be comfortable with everybody seeing?’”
When PeekYou launched in 2006, Hussey said his site had the same vulnerability as Twitter did this morning – a flaw that used a JavaScript command to generate spam messages and redirect users to pornographic sites. The Twitter problem was fixed just hours after it was reported – as was the PeekYou problem in 2006 – but the fact that it happened on such a trafficked site is unsettling.
“It’s a good thing Twitter reacted right away,” Hussey told TechNewsDaily. “It was just people altering the content of the page, it wasn’t anything really malicious, but it easily could have been.”
If the vulnerability hadn’t been fixed, Hussey said the results – hijacked pages, stolen information – “would’ve been ridiculous.”
As the creator of several social networking sites, including RateMyTeachers.com and RateMyProfessors.com, Hussey said worrying about security breaches is an unavoidable part of the game.
“You have to worry about it,” he said. “It’s amazing how many people are out there spending hours and hours a day looking for these vulnerabilities and looking to manipulate the content of websites.”
As people continue to post information about themselves, Hussey said the threats will always exist. Only when an Internet security issue directly affects users – and specifically their wallets – will people change their online behavior, Hussey argued.
