{"id":1480,"date":"2013-08-14T14:25:59","date_gmt":"2013-08-14T06:25:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/?p=1480"},"modified":"2013-08-14T14:28:48","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T06:28:48","slug":"when-facebook-data-is-leaked-to-delete-or-not-to-delete","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/2013\/08\/14\/when-facebook-data-is-leaked-to-delete-or-not-to-delete\/","title":{"rendered":"When Facebook data is leaked: To delete or not to delete?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Image<\/a>

Image by Kaspersky Lab<\/p><\/div>\n

Over the last nine years, Facebook has grown from a small social networking site originally intended for college students into a worldwide platform that is now used not only by private users, but by some of the world\u2019s largest corporations.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In Asia, the Philippines currently tops the list of Facebook users with 30 million accounts and 92.2% penetration rate.<\/p>\n

However, with the enormous expansion and popularity of Facebook comes increased concerns over the privacy it offers to its users. In fact, the extreme popularity of this social networking site makes it one of the most dangerous places on the Internet.<\/p>\n

According to Kaspersky Lab<\/a>, a leading developer of security and threat management solutions, it may be time to reevaluate your favorite social media channel and think about whether there is a need to deactivate or permanently delete your Facebook account to reduce the risk of a privacy breach.<\/p>\n

But when do you actually deactivate or delete your Facebook account?<\/p>\n

Privacy should be a key factor in considering if a Facebook account should be deleted, deactivated or if simple changes on account and privacy settings should only be made.<\/p>\n

A recent incident was reported lately about the leak of information of at least 6 million users from Facebook.<\/p>\n

It was faulted on a coding error in Facebook, which allowed unauthorized downloading of other people\u2019s information using Facebook\u2019s own Download Your Information (DYI) tool.<\/p>\n

Facebook blocked the DYI tool as soon as the leakage was discovered. But when it\u2019s about the Internet, even a few minutes is already worth several days. Once leaked, the data is made public online forever.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the demonstrations that even the best cloud services like Facebook are not flawless. Therefore, every user should have a plan of action in case of a crash,\u201d wrote Serge Malenkovich in the Kaspersky Lab Daily blog.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs safe as one may feel with the privacy settings that they have set up for their accounts, one should always be aware of the dangers that lurk when it comes to sharing information on Facebook,\u201d added Kaspersky Lab Daily\u2019s Cassie Bodnar.<\/p>\n

One major consideration in deleting a Facebook account is if a user is absolutely certain of what Facebook would be doing to information from their users. Facebook\u2019s Data Use Policy states it is constantly collecting your personal information to bring you better, more targeted advertising and to improve your overall user experience. But, in doing so, it may also be compromising your privacy.<\/p>\n

Malenkovich suggested the following ways to protect information stored in social networking sites like Facebook.<\/p>\n

\u00b7 Use a trusted e-mail address to receive notifications from social networks. You\u2019ll need a separate email to communicate with your colleagues and friends. You also need another highly secure account to receive letters from your bank and other important institutions.
\n\u00b7 Consider having a separate cell phone number for important information.
\n\u00b7 There is always a possibility of error. If you made some post or photo to be viewed by \u201cFriends\u201d only or even \u201cPrivate,\u201d it doesn’t guarantee that no one will ever see it. It is best to share sensitive items in person, or by means of direct communication.
\n\u00b7 If you store data in a cloud-based service like Facebook only for yourself, consider encrypting it.<\/p>\n

Bryan Sat, Kaspersky Lab Business Development Manager for the Philippines, said an ordinary person can perform a simple encryption method using a very strong password for each web service or online account that one has.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is highly recommended to create unique and complicated passwords\u2014 a combination of upper- and lower-case letters, numerals and symbols\u2014 so there will be difficulty gaining unauthorized access to your account,\u201d Sat said.<\/p>\n

Bodnar also added that if you feel that privacy is being compromised and may decide that it\u2019s time to delete the account, you can use these steps to do so:<\/p>\n

There are two options when it comes to closing out Facebook profile: deactivation or deletion.<\/p>\n

Deactivating the account will simply put everything on hold. When choosing this option, your Timeline will no longer be publically visible, but the information will remain stored within Facebook in case you choose to reactivate the account at a later time.<\/p>\n

Kaspersky Lab reminds that if you decide to deactivate the account, the profile will still show up in user\u2019s friends\u2019 lists of friends, but it will be inaccessible once clicked on.<\/p>\n

However, there are a few more items to consider when the decision for deletion is being considered. These include taking back all the information stored on personal accounts, which could amount to thousands of photos, videos, and important links.<\/p>\n

It may take a month for the profile to actually disappear and up to 90 days for it to be removed from Facebook\u2019s computer system entirely. Once the profile is deleted there is no way to retrieve any of your information.<\/p>\n

However, Facebook does offer the option to download a copy of your info before deletion, including your entire Timeline (posts, photos, messages etc.), an expanded archive and the activity log.<\/p>\n

Sat reminds users to assess the consequences and benefits of deleting one\u2019s account. There are still many ways to protect information stored in Facebook, which only requires users\u2019 utmost attention to privacy settings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the last nine years, Facebook has grown from a small social networking site originally intended for college students into a worldwide platform that is now used not only by private users, but by some of the world\u2019s largest corporations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1481,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,22],"tags":[509,441,117,508],"class_list":["post-1480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apps","category-spotlight","tag-data-privacy","tag-facebook","tag-kaspersky-lab","tag-social-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1480"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1480\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.upgrademag.com\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}