Today, Facebook releases Threat Exchange. It’s being built as a platform where businesses can caution each other about the latest security threats and hacking trends, like malware, spam and phishing.
Other social media giants and online providers, like Yahoo, Twitter and Tumblr contributed to the building of Threat Exchange. In fact, seven tech companies, including Dropbox, are involved in this creation. This program consists of API’s (Application Program Interface- a set of tools for building software applications) and Facebook’s platform for allies to ask, answer and share security threats to participants. According to Facebook officials, playing around with early feedback allows participants to be more open and blunt about conversations involving threats. And they can control the conversation. For example, a major threat to one company many not be a threat at all to another company, so just alert the one company. Or there may be a major attack on the horizon for all participants involved. And it’s already working. Thanks to threat exchange, many companies are schooling other companies of what to do in the wake of a security threat.
Now this is what needs to happen. Hackers are getting bolder and bolder and so are their attacks. I’m happy Facebook, Twitter, and five other online companies, are putting competition aside and working together toward the common good. I’m glad the best minds in technology are building a network like this. I would like to see them take it even further. I hope Facebook opens up Threat Exchange to the people. Maybe we the people can learn to protect ourselves from security threats. And who knows? Maybe we can share our security concerns on this new forum. In this era of ever increasing attacks, we need each other to combat this worldwide threat before more people get hurt. What more can we do as a community to combat threats like malware and ID theft?