Sophos Issues an Open Letter to Facebook

IT security and data protection firm, Sophos has issued an open letter to the popular social networking site, Facebook. The networking site has off late garnered a lot of criticism from data protection firms like these owing to its faulty security settings.




Intending to safeguard the personal data of over 500 million Facebook users, Sophos has issued its concerns in this letter. Sophos has in its letter, labeled the issues under three broad categories – privacy by default, vetted app developers, https for everything. The privacy by default issue pertains to the habit of the social networking site to express personal details of the user without him or her agreeing to do so. Sophos has asked Facebook to curb this activity, and instead should ask the user if he wishes to do so, or otherwise. For the vetted app developers, Sophos added that only third party app developers who’re vetted and approved, be allowed to introduce apps on Facebook. This feature, according to the data security firm is essential because otherwise it would be an invitation to fake, roguish app developers. As a step towards ensuring more security, Facebook opened up the https doorway. However, the glitch here was that it was kept off, by default. Facebook should instead keep it on by default to safeguard information.

It now remains to be seen Facebook’s course of action post reading Sophos’s three-point plan letter.