Social Networking Security: Social Anxiety

Created by Valerie M. Vogel (EDUCAUSE) on August 7, 2009

Randy Marchany, Director of the Virginia Tech IT Security Testing Lab, is featured in Social Network Security: Social Anxiety, an article in the August 2009 issue of SCMagazine. Marchany discusses the unique opportunities and challenges that social networking sites present from a security standpoint.

At Virginia Tech, prohibiting access to social media sites is not an option due to the openness of the university experience. Marchany's office can help protect pupils from cybercrooks lurking on the web. For example, the security office hosts a site that offers comprehensive resources for protecting oneself online. A more personable attempt at reaching students is made during freshman orientation, when the security office addresses online risks, including those that can be found on social networking sites. Particularly, the students are warned about phishing attacks and third-party widgets that sites like Facebook make available to them. Users must be mindful that when running these applications and games, they are not installing malware or divulging private data that could be used later in a targeted social engineering ploy. And when they arrive for their freshmen year, students at Virginia Tech are given a CD-ROM that they must install before plugging their machines into the network. The disk contains the latest AV and spyware updates and firewall configurations and blocks known malware sites.

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		Social Networking Security: Social Anxiety Created by Valerie M. Vogel (EDUCAUSE) on August 7, 2009 Randy Marchany, Director of the Virginia Tech IT Security Testing Lab, is featured in Social Network Security: Social Anxiety, an article in the August 2009 issue of SCMagazine. Marchany discusses the unique opportunities and challenges that social networking sites present from a security standpoint. At Virginia Tech, prohibiting access to social media sites is not an option due to the openness of the university experience. Marchany's office can help protect pupils from cybercrooks lurking on the web. For example, the security office hosts a site that offers comprehensive resources for protecting oneself online. A more personable attempt at reaching students is made during freshman orientation, when the security office addresses online risks, including those that can be found on social networking sites. Particularly, the students are warned about phishing attacks and third-party widgets that sites like Facebook make available to them. Users must be mindful that when running these applications and games, they are not installing malware or divulging private data that could be used later in a targeted social engineering ploy. And when they arrive for their freshmen year, students at Virginia Tech are given a CD-ROM that they must install before plugging their machines into the network. The disk contains the latest AV and spyware updates and firewall configurations and blocks known malware sites. Cybersecurity Initiative Announcements \| Network Security and Applications \| Phishing \| Security Awareness \| Viruses and Worms \| Web 2.0 Valerie's blog Login or register to post comments 282 reads
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