Well, it seems Facebook is wildly insecure and none of those third-party applications should ever be trusted. Who would have guessed it?
Specifically, there’s an app out there called Photo of the Day that ostensibly displays photos of the day ::cough:: from National Geographic. It does more than that, though, and sends unwanted traffic to a chosen Web site. Then that chosen Web site is dealing with a denial of service attack.
Photo of the Day is merely a proof of concept and doesn’t actually target any Web sites. Developed by a team of researchers (“hackers!” in CNN talk), its main purpose is to demonstrate how easy it easy to wreak havoc by using Facebook.
As I’ve said time and time again, Internet security is largely a myth, and pretty much the only way to keep your data safe is to never interact with anyone ever. Failing that, be alert.