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Many Facebookers Blindly Accept Friend Requests, Aussie Study Finds

by Caleb Johnson on December 7, 2009 at 01:35 PM

Despite warnings of scams, Facebook users still don't seem to be taking security seriously. We're not sure what encourages this reckless behavior, but it apparently isn't isolated to U.S. shores. The folks at Sophos, an anti-virus firm, took it upon themselves to figure out just how trusting Australians are when it comes to Facebook friend requests. They created two female profiles -- Daisy Feletin, a 21-year-old bachelorette, and Dinette Stonily, a 56-year-old wife. From each profile, researchers sent friend requests to 100 random people in the appropriate age group.

The result? A larger chunk of people, 46-percent, accepted Daisy, but Dinette ended up with more friends because eight unsolicited Facebookers asked to be her friend. Considering the prevalence of scams exploiting such habits, it's frightening that so many people would blindly accept a request from a person they've never met. Even worse, people who accepted the requests also had posted sensitive information (like e-mail addresses and birthdays) on their profiles -- in other words, handing themselves over to scammers on a silver platter.

How can you protect your account? It's simple: don't accept requests from people you don't know. (That girl in the wet t-shirt doesn't really want to get to know you.) As for your page, think hard about exactly what information you want out there. Often, we've found less is more. [From: Sophos]

Tags: facebook, scam, security, socialnetworking, study, top, web

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