or “Oops, They Did It Again.”
Ah, you silly, tricksy Facebook. Messing with privacy features again, and now look what happened?
Apparently, earlier this morning, there was a glitch during one of Facebook’s updates which allowed users to exploit a loophole and read the private chats of their friends. You can read the article on Forbes.com.
Even cooler, here is a video of the bug in action.
I do believe that social media can be a great tool for business, but this just proves that it is not a good idea to go around friending and fanning and liking everybody in the universe.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the Internet is growing less and less secure all the time. This snafu with Facebook proves that point with stark clarity.
If you absolutely must discuss sensitive information over the Internet, I recommend using an actual chat client, rather than something that happens to have chat added on as an additional feature. I myself use Skype, which has had questions about their security, but I am unaware of any actual security breakdowns as we have seen with Facebook. Plus, it supports video conferencing, which I feel adds a bit of a personal touch to the interaction.
The bottom line, however, is that if the information truly is very private, like bank account numbers, information that is regulated by things like HIPAA, or anything that really should not be available to anyone else, then DON’T USE THE INTERNET!! It isn’t secure. Don’t even use e-mail. Such things should happen live or at the very least over the phone.
