Nita Saxena is both agitated and perplexed. She is continually bombarded with numerous replies from friends and acquaintances, accepting her invitation to join the social networking sites she is active on. If she has invited them, why should she get angry? Simple. She has never sent out a single invitation.
On digging further, she found out that such invites were being sent not only to her colleagues and friends, but to her top bosses too - essentially, everyone who features in her address book.
"I was surprised when people called me up and enquired on the invites that I was supposed to have sent them. Even though my profile is posted on a couple of social networking sites, I don't get much time for social interactions, not to mention asking people to join these sites," says Saxena.
Nita is not alone. She is one among the estimated 5-6 million Indians, who are actively involved in social networking and spend approximately 25-75 per cent of their time online in social networking activities.
Welcome to the world of the over-friendly and 'single-minded' Trojan. Single-minded, as it seems to be inviting people to the site and start networking. A Trojan is a programme that appears to be desirable (like a free downloadable game or screen saver), but contains viruses or worms (self-replicating viruses) that can create havoc with the PC and the network.
However, in the case of these social networking sites, the Trojans that plant themselves on the users' computers and send invites to all mail IDs saved in the contact list, are harmless. The Trojan embeds itself in the user's computer when he/she logs on to a social networking site and sends invites to all listed in the contact list.
The receiver - believing it to be from a genuine friend - accepts the invitations and becomes a member of the social networking site. The sites use this to increase their membership, while hackers use the technique for their phishing attempts.
They do not crash the PC nor the network, an IT specialist with a leading BPO notes. But they sure can mar friendships, relationships or even lead to unwanted and unsolicited networking.
Internet Service Providers Association of India president Rajesh Chharia says, "Even though these programmes only send spam and are quite harmless, at times it can lead to embarrassing situations".
"As most of these social networking sites are used for business networking and friendship, it is not possible for Internet Service Providers to block these sites. The best option is to put in good firewalls at the user's level," he said.
ISPAI, on its part, had sought approvals from the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Telecommunications, to put in filters at the ISP level to protect data and ensure privacy to all Internet users in the country.
"The issue needs to be addressed pro-actively using security solutions, both on the server and client level. F-Secure has solutions both for corporates and consumers, which are being offered through ISP partners," F-Secure director (sales) Venu Palakirti said.
So the next time you log on to a social networking site, an invitation to join the site has gone to your super boss on your behalf. But without your knowledge!
