Social Networking: Risks and realities Nick Barron

2 Who am I? Day job –Employed by Pennant Plc –Head of Group IT, Security controller, software developer Meanwhile... –Freelance security consultant/researcher –SC magazine columnist –IT advisor to DISA Disclaimers –Views expressed are my own, not those of my employer –Don’t try this at work without consent –Check legal aspects

3 What am I talking about? What information can be obtained from online social networks? How can it be (ab)used? What can you do to address the risks Focus on corporate liabilities/risks Mainly about risks of online social networks, but many apply equally to old fashioned ones too!

4 The usual suspects

5 Not just for kids Source: Used with permission

6 How data leaks: users Oversharing Short-temper syndrome Underestimated automation Did you post it online? Probably not private Possibly private

7 How data leaks: hacks

8 How data leaks: loose lips

9

10 How data leaks: apps

11 How data leaks: location

12 Facebook never forgets!

13 Feature creep

14 Risks are real…

15 Risks are real… (2)

16 Risks are real (3)

17 Risks are real (4)

18 Risks are real (5) “All Your Contacts Are Belong to Us” WWW Automatically create fake profiles and request friends Create profiles on other sites

19 Risks are real (6)

20 Who cares?

21 Using the data (1)

22 Using the data (2) Online Privacy Foundation’s “Big 5” experiment –Establish Myers-Briggs characteristics –Linguistic and post statistics analysis –Statistically significant link between FB habits and personality test results (but…) –Twitter: are you a psychopath?! “Augmenting password recovery…” –Use online profiles to help guess passwords –Early days but other research ongoing –What about those password reset questions…?

23 Using the data (3) Facebook analysis to determine Nigerian scammers (PDF) (video)

24 Sanity check Your employees will use Facebook etc –Even if blocked at work –Use takes place outside corporate network perimeter Social network users are not customers, they are product It is not in social network vendors’ commercial interests to make your privacy a priority –Long record of truly awful security –Commercialisation is an incentive for more intrusion

25 Defences

26 Guidance

27 Guidance (2)

28 Countermeasures Education, education, educations –Most users don’t actually want to breach privacy –Usually unaware of how much is available –Better privacy awareness increases personal security as well as business security Used with kind permission of Scott Hampson,

29 Countermeasures (2) Snoop yourself (Google, NodeXL, Maltego etc) Check exposure of key staff Include social networks in scope for penetration tests (but check with ethics/legal departments)

30 Countermeasures (3) Blur data where possible –Your friends will already know most of the useful info –Minimise what goes into profile –Seed a few bogus “facts” –Turn off location features –Check password reset policies But…. –Not having DOB no help when people say “Happy Birthday” on your Facebook wall! –May be breach of terms of service to lie

31 Countermeasures (4) Weed old accounts –FriendsReunited, MySpace etc Compartmentation where possible –Facebook for home stuff –LinkedIn for business –Flickr for pictures –Avoid the use of corporate mail addresses for social networking sites –High value targets should consider use different addresses

32 Countermeasures (5) “Placeholder” profiles on unused systems Look at ‘privacy’ settings –KISS, don’t have too many options –Assume privacy controls will fail, and consider impact –If in doubt, don’t post Used with kind permission of Scott Hampson,

33 Summary Online social networks are not going away any time soon There are real benefits to their use for many staff OSN vendors cannot be trusted to implement strong security Education and defensive monitoring are the best protections The risks apply to non-electronic social networks as well!

34 Links… (Sept 2012, lots of business level info too) for great cartoons! harmonyguy.com nodexl.codeplex.com (free Excel plugin for social network analysis) (industry standard tool for network analysis)

35 Questions?