"I had access to e-mail and bank accounts. I saw patterns in the kind of friends they had. The LinkedIn profiles would show patterns of new business relationships."
This is a quote from a ComputerWorld interview with Thomas Ryan, a security professional who created a fake persona to see how much information he could access via social networks. He stacked the deck by creating a young, cute, and highly intelligent woman, Robin Sage, and put her out on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. The flirtatious cybergeek was able to make a few hundred friends in Intelligence and Government circles and gained access to sensitive information. It's an interesting lesson based on common sense: "The big takeaway is not to friend anybody unless you really know who they are." Like the recent Soviet Spy discovery, a cute face with a smarty pants background goes a long way in how we "trust" someone.
Fake femme fatale shows social network risks - Computerworld
