Some 75% of London Facebook users allow anyone to view their online profiles, making them a target for cyber-criminals.
Sophos is calling on Facebook to improve its default privacy settings. Current default settings allow any user to view user profiles and this results in information being made available publicly for dubious means.
The company recently took a random snapshot of 200 users in the London Facebook network, the single largest geographic network on the site, with more than 1.2 million members. It found that 75% allow their profiles to be viewed by any other members, as the default setting dictates.
Sophos has seen evidence that other geographic regions are similarly exposing personal information. The company notes that the scale of these member networks indicates how enticing social networking sites can be for cyber criminals.
The snapshot also revealed that 25% of London members reveal information relating to their work, 54% show their full date of birth, and 1% (12 000 people) are divulging their phone number to over a million strangers.
"While Facebook's privacy features are far more sophisticated than competing social networking sites, too many members still aren't getting the message about how to use them effectively to help protect against ID theft," says Brett Myroff, CEO of Sophos distributor Netxactics.
Sophos believes it is time for the networking phenomenon to change its default settings. This would mean that when members join a network, they would have to actively click to leave their details on show.
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