As technology evolves, criminals are always just one step behind looking for ways to exploit new applications for personal gain. According to experts, an even more sinister form of malware is on the way thanks to the recent popularity of social networking websites.
Computer scientists are beginning to issue warnings that attackers will soon create “Stealing Reality” malware that will use victim’s social networking accounts to steal behavioral patterns rather than regular demographic information that is often collected today.
"A Stealing Reality type of malware attack, which is targeted at learning the social communication patterns, could 'piggyback' on the user generated messages, or imitate their natural patterns, thus not drawing attention to itself while still achieving its target goals,” researchers recently wrote regarding a study of how such an attack might play out. “There is no reason to think that developers of malicious applications will not implement the same method and algorithms into future malware, or that they have not already started doing so."
The attacks would be slow and stealthy, researchers say. Malware that is undetected could sit for extensive periods of time collecting information from the identities of the victim’s friends and family to where they work, when they’re away from home, and other places they frequent.
And this type of theft would be more difficult to recover from than the identity theft we’ve become accustomed to. While dealing with fraudulent transactions can be expensive and inconvenient, you can’t change your personal reality once it’s in the hands of others.
For example, researchers cited an example of a court case where a bankrupt gay dating website for teenagers is attempting to sell their database full of teen boys’ personal information to help repay creditors. Right now we struggle to control how companies are able to use the personal data they collect from users, however once that information reaches the hands of thieves there is no longer any element of control.
At first glance I thought this “Stealing Reality” prediction was nothing but more fear mongering that is so common in the media, but the more I contemplate it I can see it as being a very real threat. There are many high profile people who record a great deal of detail about their lives on social media and the potential for what could be done with the information is actually pretty scary. Additionally, kids who are growing up online will have a great deal more to lose than those of us who have only been able to record a comparatively small portion of our adult lives on social networks. I had already begun to be more careful about information I post online, but this will definitely make me even more cautious.
