Skip to Main Content
Hacking: The Next Generation
book

Hacking: The Next Generation

by Nitesh Dhanjani, Billy Rios, Brett Hardin
August 2009
Beginner content levelBeginner
298 pages
9h 5m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Hacking: The Next Generation

Leveraging Social Networks

Attackers can use social applications such as MySpace and Facebook to gain inordinate amounts of information about a company’s employees. Information such as an employee’s hometown, her interests, and even incriminating pictures are available on these sites.

Social applications attempt to prevent unauthorized parties from viewing users’ information. However, social applications and their users benefit from that information being publicly available, making it easier for people to find others who share similar interests without knowing them first. Users of social applications are therefore given an incentive to share as much data as they can; the more data they share, the more they benefit from the social network.

Facebook and MySpace

The popularity of social applications such as Facebook and MySpace has grown exponentially around the world. These applications are driving a phenomenal paradigm shift in how people communicate and collaborate.

From an attacker’s point of view, a wealth of information is available from profiles on social networking websites. An attacker can obtain an amazing amount of information without even having an account on some social networking applications, such as MySpace. Alternatively, an attacker can easily create an account to gain the ability to interact with a targeted individual. For example, an attacker may send friend requests to an employee of a specifically targeted company to gain additional knowledge of the company.

Abusing ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Building a Modern Security Program

Building a Modern Security Program

Zane Lackey, Rebecca Huehls
Network Security Hacks

Network Security Hacks

Andrew Lockhart
Ransomware

Ransomware

Allan Liska, Timothy Gallo

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9780596806309Errata Page