What did I just do with my contacts list? – Social Engineering/Networking & contact list scraping

A recent article in the Windows Secrets newsletter titled Viral Inviters Want Your E-mail Contact List raised some fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in my mind. Sometimes we use FUD as a term of derision, but in this case it might be warranted suspicion. How many times have you registered on a social networking website and get prompted to contact all of your contacts to join you there? Sounds simple and painless, right? Maybe not painless… simple it is for sure. Just be wary of what you click on and accept on these social networking websites. Warn your contacts about the same and create some type of notice you can send back to them when you receive an invitation that came through their interaction with such a social networking website.

Thanks for reading & let’s continue to be good network citizens.