WEB 2.0 - Protect your information !

The term “Web 2.0” entered popular use in 2004 when technology publisher Tim O’Reilly used it to explain how new technologies were being used on the Internet.  At the inaugural O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 Conference, O’Reilly was describing the rapid movement away from static pages and websites to enhanced browsers and dynamic content.

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as “the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.”

The popularity of Web 2.0 applications has fueled rapid growth in hosted software-as-a-service

applications, such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn; video-sharing sites like YouTube; and collaborative wikis and blogs (both public and private)

The openness and collaboration in Web 2.0 bring a heightened awareness of sensitive personal
information. Every user of a Web 2.0 service now must assume information criminals are watching
to steal personal information. Consumers must become stewards of their personally identifiable
information and safeguard its use in Web 2.0 sites and applications to avoid becoming victims of
identity theft, fraud and other criminal activities

Here are some of the things they can do to avoid becoming victims:

Validate all websites—Reputation and trust services give users a gauge to measure the risk of known

websites and their Web 2.0 services.

Pay special attention to unfamiliar websites—All users of the web should apply extra caution when visiting unfamiliar websites.

Use risk reporting tools—Every user of a Web 2.0 service should become aware of the fraud risks that come with misuse of personal information or identity theft. Web 2.0 can provide tools to mitigate the risk of identity theft, such as Google Alerts or credit monitoring services that report on activities about you.

Look for stronger user authentication—New user-centric, or claims-based, authentication tools based

on the OpenID industry standard are entering the marketplace

Defend against clickjacking—Clickjacking is one of the most dangerous and troubling security

problems on the web. In this attack, two layers appear on a site, one visible, one transparent, and

users inadvertently interact with the transparent layer that has malicious intent. Login credentials for

a bank account, for example, can be captured by the second layer. New countermeasures, such as

NoScript with ClearClick for the Firefox Web browser, reduce the clickjacking risk.