Facebook through SMS not safe?

Facebook through SMS not safe?

If you thought your status messages on the social networking site, Facebook, can only be updated by you or somebody who has actually hacked into your account, you need to think again. A serious vulnerability in Facebook's security allows anybody who has your mobile phone number to not only change status messages, but also add or delete friends, send out private messages to other users and upload or change profile pictures. 

However, the security flaw only affects those who have activated Facebook Mobile, a facility that allows the user to send updates on the social networking site through text messages from a mobile phone. 

Facebook Mobile was started for users who could not afford expensive smartphones which have internet connectivity, but still wanted to keep in touch on the go. 

The flaw was demonstrated live to TOI by Mohit Kumar, a 21-year-old computer engineering student. "Once you activate Facebook Mobile, your mobile phone number is directly linked with your Facebook profile. All one needs to do is send an SMS and Facebook directly updates that content on the profile associated with that mobile number," he said. 

The technique behind taking over someone else's Facebook account is known as SMS spoofing. Mohit said the hacker needs to log into any free SMS sending sites and modify certain cookies. 

"Once that's done, you can change the sender's number. So if you send a text to Facebook, it behaves as if it has been sent from the actual user's phone and updates the profile. The user is unaware that his status, email or friend request have been updated by somebody else," he added. 

The flaw can be abused in various ways. A user may log on to Facebook and see that he has abused his boss! On a more serious note, a woman's dignity could be hurt by posting obscene pictures on her profile page or sending out vulgar private messages to other users.

source:http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/tech/social-media/Facebook-through-SMS-not-safe-/articleshow/6951115.cms