Techworld and ComputerWorld recently reported an incident that shows the risks of engaging with strangers via social networks. Thomas Ryan from security company Provide Security (with a generic name like that I feel for their SEO person) created a fake profile for a woman named Robin Sage, who posed as a Navy cyberthreat analyst and tried to befriend around 300 real people in the US military, defence contractors, infosec companies and intelligence agencies. It was a 28-day experiment that was to be showcased at the BlackHat USA 2010 conference, which finished yesterday.

These incidents are a sobering reminder of how easy it is to conduct social engineering for nefarious purposes. Fortunately, no real damage was done other than having the accounts cancelled (Facebook also banned Ryan permanently and closed his account). The fake LinkedIn profile is still visible in the Google cache.
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