The Register reports that Social Networking services like Friendster or Google’s Orkut are huge targets for hackers.
The name means “to cum” in Finnish slang – literally, to orgasm – but the Orkut social networking service that Google launched on Friday was utterly spent by Sunday afternoon.
Members of the Friendster-clone were greeted with a message that faded (stylishly) into view – the stylish fade-in coming from some piece of fancy script that only a web designer would think was important.
“We’ve taken orkut.com offline as we implement some improvements and upgrades suggested by users. Since orkut is in the very early stages of development, it’s likely to be up and down quite a bit during the coming months.”
I had no idea Orkut was slang for Orgasm…. more on Security:
The problem was security. Sources close to Google suggest widespread XSS (cross-site scripting) hacks forced the closure of the service. It isn’t clear how much personal data or communication was disclosed.
The major problem facing social networks is that they scarf up personal information far more efficiently than a Carnivore system. People really aren’t going to trust them if they view these start-ups as honeypots for future marketroids to reap everything we didn’t want them to know. Let alone allow a passing hacker to scarf up this potential archive of great exploitable value.
