The fundamental issue isn’t Facebook apps, but rather, dangerous third-party content that gets distributed through ad networks. (I should hasten to say that Zango’s software does NOT fall into this category.) The problem exists any time you visit a website that links to a third-party ad network that doesn’t do a great job of scrubbing its advertisers. A LOT of hackers now have accounts on second or third tier ad networks, and they place exploit code on sites that their “ads” redirect to. Most ad networks are pretty good about cleaning stuff like this up, but I’ve run into some that simply ignore any reports of problems with their advertisers. IMO, the security community should be VERY aggressive about outing advertisers who fail to take this problem seriously.

There’s room for a technology solution here as well. Companies like SiteScout and their competitors can do a lot to flag potentially dangerous landing pages for review by the ad network in question. But first you have to understand what the real prolem is, and then take the problem seriously, and I don’t see much sign that folks are doing either of those yet.

I’m impressed that you keep an eye out for posts talking about your company. Thanks for the link bait.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on how this kind of situation can be avoided, and perhaps how Facebook apps could be improved to avoid harming both consumers and companies.

Dave

http://smithkl42.blogspot.com/2008/01/deconstructing-socially-generated.html

Ken Smith
CTO, Zango