Why you should avoid Facebook sign in for third-party Applications
Quite often people don’t understand signing in apps and services with Facebook profile comes at a cost — Vulnerability.
It’s no secret that registering to Apps and Services with existing profiles(Facebook or Google) saves you time and more importantly one less login to remember. The subscribed service gets more than required information about you. It is clear that the service being subscribed to likes it when you sign in with your existing online profiles instead of manually creating one.
What really happens when you sign in with google or facebook?
Let’s say you are creating a new profile for choosemybicycle.com as this service requires you to create a profile for performing a transaction, either manually creating one with a user name and (yet another)password or Facebook sign in. Signing in via Facebook will result in Facebook confirming you are the same person as you are affirming and more importantly sharing your data — Email Id, some control over your Facebook account, your contact list and some more.
Now if choosemybicycle.com gets hacked, the hacking party gets access to the data shared by Facebook which could be brutal in some cases. If you had signed in manually, the damage would have been less severe.
It’s important to understand that there is a tradeoff here. The chances of Facebook getting completely hacked are quite less than a web service like choosemybicycle.com as giant companies like Facebook and Google invest extensively in security while others cannot. It is also difficult to conceive the thought of Facebook losing all its data.
So, what’s wrong with signing in with Facebook?
Well, Facebook is more prone to partial cyber attacks than small web services as the hackers are more interested in getting Facebook’s data rather than knowing the preference of your bicycle.
Every year, we hear news of millions of users belonging to some geography losing their data to hackers and agencies. And then there is denying from Facebook’s side about the same because a lot of times they don’t know the amount of information leaked and the extent of damage done.
If you sign in via Facebook, you’re basically putting all your eggs in one basket. Losing the basket could be brutal. Is brutal.
Talking of solution, there is no universal solution for this, password managers seem to be a promising option, there are so many to choose from and again you could be fighting the same old basket and egg problem.
What happens to my existing profiles when I delete my Facebook account?
This would inadvertently reactivate your Facebook account. If you have logged into an application or service with Facebook before deactivating your profile, you may or may not get access to the service as it completely depends on the nature of the service in question and its dependence on your Facebook data.
As desecration of data becomes common on the internet resulting in more people getting affected by it which in turn resulting in more people getting conscious about their data, it is important we are aware of our data usage and its sharing by internet companies for their mutual benefit. Privacy policies of Internet companies keep changing more frequently than ever before. Generally, the presentation of the policies changed is embedded in legal jargon and requires users to read terms and conditions in detail. Ignorance of such policies has already caused problems and this could get only worse with time.
Hence, it’s important to become aware of the amount of information we have on the internet and appropriately choose apps and services which gets the job done, protects our data and makes us less vulnerable on the Internet.
Thanks for Reading!
