Social Networking Security or Lack of When Promoting Your Brand

I always thought facebook security was simple: don’t be an idiot, and nothing bad will happen.  It seems obvious to me to have a good password that gets changed often, never leave my facebook open where someone else could get to it, etc.  Anyone who isn’t completely computer-illiterate or careless will be fine, right?

This summer I worked for a summer camp (DaVinci Camp) and a huge portion of my job was to update and maintain the facebook page of the camp.  I found it surprisingly difficult, as every single thing I posted must be carefully thought out.  One wrong move can completely change the image of a whole organization in the blink of an eye.  I found myself second-guessing all the time, and taking a long time to make any posts at all.  “What will people think of this?”  “Is this really worth posting?”  I stayed away from liking things entirely.  What if a potential customer doesn’t agree with the page I’m liking?  Still, I thought as long as I was careful, nothing could go wrong.

After reading “A Guide To Facebook Security,” (McCarthy, Watson, Weldon-Siviy) though, I realized just how careful I need to be.  The article talked about one thing that really caught my attention, something I’d never heard of or even thought about before: “likejacking.”  McCarthy says, “One form of clickjacking is to hide a LIKE button underneath a dummy button.  That’s called Likejacking.”  This tricky tactic makes me nervous, as one false step could shift the my whole image, or worse, that of DaVinci Camp, and I wouldn’t even know it.

The solution I suppose would be to log out of the important facebook account unless you’re actively using the page.  McCarthy also says having up-to-date browsers can help prevent clickjacking.  After reading this, I’ve checked my own facebook wall everyday just to make sure that I haven’t “liked” something that I didn’t actually mean to.  The length that sites are willing to go through for a like is sad, and frightening.