It’s next to impossible to avoid hearing about security on the social networking website Facebook, but something being brought in with Norton later this year will help.
The technology “Norton Safe Web for Facebook” will be featured in Norton Internet Security 2011 and acts as a link checker for your Facebook wall.
“We believe it is our job to help educate internet users about their exposure to online risks, and to offer advice and solutions for how they can help to keep themselves and their family and friends safe online,” says Symantec’s David Hall. “If a cybercriminal manages to infiltrate my friend network on a social media site, I can help alert my friend and help the rest of my group not fall for similar scams.”
The software is already available as a free application on the Facebook network and can be run by logged in Facebook users to check if any scams have been published to their profile.
We had a play with the new feature and found it was an excellent way to check through links posted on the Facebook profile wall. It’s not hard with users merely going to the right address (the feature in Norton 2011 opens up the address in your default browser), logging into Facebook, and then letting the scanner do its thing.
The results are shown with icons indicating if the links are safe, untested, or if they’re risky and possibly dangerous.
Most of our links came back safe with only two requiring testing. All in all, the service proved an excellent way of testing our wall for dodgy links.
