Cambridge Analytica & Facebook, compromised data – more reminders!

Do we need yet another wake-up call regarding keeping our data safe?  The latest scandal involving Cambridge Analytica’s mining of Facebook profiles, which has been running for a few weeks now and shows no signs of abating, is a sign of rising public consciousness that personal data is important, it is valuable. The case highlights just how social media companies seem to please themselves when it comes to who has access to what.  At the very least, social media companies take a commercial view which is in their own interests and not in the interests of their customers/users – and who can blame them – it’s how they make a profit.

While those that need to have sensitive and/or commercial communications probably won’t be using Facebook to do so, they might be using consumer grade apps such as WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) or others.  The messages sent on these services are encrypted, but, as we’ve said before, the associated metadata still gives away a lot of valuable information.  To illustrate this point, by profiling the metadata associated with a conversation between two people, it is possible to identify who is the most important, ie. Boss and sub-ordinate, simply based on the frequency, length, number and response times of replies. Using these techniques it is possible to map a whole organisation!

This is a timely reminder that if you’d rather keep your sensitive communications private you need to be aware of where your metadata is held and who might have access to it. Relying on social media companies that makes their money through third parties advertising to the user base, is never going to be good for users – it is the price you pay for a ‘free’ service.

Services provided by security vendors don’t rely on selling advertising to make a profit, they are in business to protect their customer’s data, and their reputation lives or dies by their ability to do so.  Something worth remembering next time you need to send a work/business related communication.