Norton Symantec Blog

The online social networking website Facebook has been criticised for a ‘shocking’ breach f security. A glitch in the website’s code allowed hackers to be able to gather people’s date of birth – a snippet of information that police have called a ‘golden nugget’ for those attempting to commit identity fraud.

Facebook, which is based in the state of California, have now corrected the error in the code and henceforth the information will not be made publically available. Similar glitches have previously been discovered in Facebook’s code and the police have used the advent of this latest leak to remind people that real dangers exist online.

Many of these dangers stem from identity fraud, which allows a person to assume a different identity to a variety of reasons. Financial gain is one of the main reasons for identity fraud, but another more menacing threat comes from sexual predators that trawl the net. Here the figures are stark and disquieting.
More than one in ten children have had a sexual chat online. A quarter visit adult websites and about half of them lie to their parents about their Internet activity. Meanwhile, eight out of ten parents are convinced that they know what their children do online. *

If you are worried about the dangers of the Internet and how it can affect your family, browse through a list of Norton’s security products online. An array of quality products have been designed and tested to make your Internet experience much safer.

* From a poll commissioned by the Carphone Warehouse