Facebook hits 175 million user mark

A little more than a month after announcing it had 150 million active users, Facebook has reached 175 million active users--the statistic the social-networking site prefers to use, rather than registered accounts overall.

Dave Morin, who runs Facebook's application platform team, announced the milestone Friday evening on his Twitter/FriendFeed. Facebook reached 150 million just more than two months after reaching 120 million and about four months after reaching 100 million.

Behind Facebook’s Failed Twitter Deal

Facebook’s stalled attempt to buy Twitter, it seems, hasn’t dampened its appetite for acquisitions.

Peter Thiel, one of the social networking company’s largest investors and a director on its board, told BusinessWeek that Facebook is still on the lookout of deals.

“We’re still focusing on growing as much as possible,” he told the publication.

As for the failed Twitter deal, Mr. Thiel told BusinessWeek that talks to buy the microblogging service fell apart due to disagreements over over price and structure.

“It became pretty clear it wasn’t going to happen,” Mr. Thiel, who runs hedge fund Clarium Capital, told the magazine. “The deal would have to be done with Facebook stock. And then you have to figure out how much the stock is worth.”

Last fall, reports surfaced that Facebook offered Twitter 3.33 percent of its stock, which it had determined was worth $500 million, based on a $15 billion valuation for Facebook that was set when Microsoft invested in the company a year ago.

But, BusinessWeek said, Twitter balked at the Facebook valuation, knowing that Facebook was letting employees sell stock on the secondary market at company valuations ranging from $2 billion to $4 billion.

“We said it’s not worth it,” a person close to Twitter with knowledge of the negotiations told BusinessWeek. “Don’t treat us like children.”

In December, however, Twitter chief executive and co-founder Evan Williams, didn’t rule out that a deal could be rekindled some time in the future.

“We explored it, as we should. We took it seriously,” Mr. Williams at the time. “It definitely made sense — the strategy we talked about with them — but it wasn’t the right time.”

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Facebook users suffer viral surge

Facebook has been targeted by malicious hackers seeking to steal valuable data from members.

The social network site has been hit by five separate security problems in the last seven days, say security experts.

By creating fake messages padded with details of Facebook members the thieves are capitalising on the trust and social links that drive the network.

Security firms warn that the popularity of social networking sites makes them a tempting target for hi-tech thieves.

Trust network

"It's been a pretty bad week for social networking in general," said Rik Ferguson, senior security advisor at Trend Micro.

In the last week, said Mr Ferguson, Facebook had been hit by four malicious applications as well as a new variant of the Koobface virus that first targeted members of the social site in December 2008.

The rogue applications on Facebook all try to steal saleable information from the profiles of those who open it up, said Mr Ferguson.

One malicious application tried to trick people into adding it by claiming that their friends were having trouble looking at their profile. If the application is added it spams itself to every Facebook friend that a member of the site has.

Mr Ferguson said the way that Facebook is built can make it tricky for members to spot malicious or rogue applications.

A lot of security software looks for malicious activity on a user's own machine, he said. By contrast, when Facebook members add an application it is servers operated by the social site that link to the third-party computers hosting that program.

So far, said Mr Ferguson, the rogue applications on Facebook have been scary and a nuisance more than anything else.

"It's almost as if the applications we have seen this week are a proof of concept," he said. "It would be much better for them to generate rogue applications that did not look like rogue applications."

Mr Ferguson said he expected more sophisticated programs that hid their malicious intent to debut soon on social network sites.

He said it was time for Facebook to review its policy of approving applications. Currently, it only vets them after they are offered to members and have been reported as causing problems.

In a Radio 1 Newsbeat interview with Mark Zuckerberg in late February, the Facebook founder rejected a call to vet all the applications showing up on the site.

He said: "Our philosophy is that having an open system anyone can participate in is generally better."

A spokesman for Facebook said members should be vigilant and never give out their password. He said Facebook did a lot of work behind the scenes to keep the site safe.

If anyone was unlucky enough to fall victim they should visit the Facebook security pages and follow the steps that lays out to get help, he said.

Writing on his blog, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at anti-virus software developers Sophos, said: "One of the problems is that Facebook allows anybody to write an application and third party applications are not vetted before they are released to the public.

"Even as Facebook stamps out one malignant application, it can pop up in another place."

Hitting Facebook users alongside the rogue applications has come a sophisticated variant of the Koobface virus that debuted in December 2008.

The new variant uses a Facebook message to try to get people to visit a fake YouTube page and install the malware. To make it look more plausible, said Mr Ferguson, the virus posts the image from a Facebook member's profile on the video page.

Once installed the malicious program hunts for cookies on a victim's computer and uses the details it finds in the small text files to log into other social sites that person may be a member of.

"This is not just restricted to Facebook," said Mr Ferguson, "it's a growing trend. Though I'm surprised it's taken so long for social sites to be targeted.