Assignment: Social Networking Security

Social networking facilitates the use of online communities to maintain contacts between groups of people and individuals with common interests on a variety of subject matters. Social networking has opened the possibility for people to expand their social interactions beyond the boundaries of time and space. Companies are now adopting social networking technologies to build relationships with customers, market products, and even recruitment. Unfortunately, the increased level of communication between users also causes the release of personal and sensitive information on social networking sites. Social networking sites can be hacked and used as attack vectors to infect computers with malware. The article Lax Security at LinkedIn Is Laid Bare, shed light on the hacking attack against LinkedIn. The article referred to the lax security by LinkedIn as a cause of the attack. "What has surprised customers and security experts alike is that a company that collects and profits from vast amounts of data had taken a bare-bones approach to protecting it. The breach highlights a disturbing truth about LinkedIn's computer security: there isn't much. Companies with customer data continue to gamble on their own computer security, even as the break-ins increase." The article refers to the importance of maintaining the security of customer information on social networking sites. However, in most cases social networking companies face few consequences and legal penalties, partly because the services offered by these companies are free to the public.

Is it important for social networking companies to implement strict security measures to protect customer information? Why? Explain. What might be some consequences of neglecting basic security protection mechanisms in social networking applications? Ironically, according to the article we see that the stock price of LinkedIn rose in the days after the breach.Add your perspectives on why this must have occurred.