Marines banned from accessing social networking sites

by Rich Bowden - Aug 5 2009, 05:27

The United States Marine Corps has issued a ban on troops accessing social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

The Corps issued an order dated August 03, which stated that it believed such sites to be a "a proven haven for [a] Malicious Actor" and has imposed the ban ahead of a Pentagon review of social networking due to be released at the end of September.

The order went on to explain that the Marine Corps considered such online destinations to pose a "particularly high risk due to information exposure, user generated content and targeting by adversaries."

The order added that sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter constituted a heightened risk of "information leakage," which could compromise personnel.

BusinessWeek magazine quoted security experts Sophos as saying Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter have all been attacked during 2009 for the purpose of compromising PCs or for the theft of sensitive information.

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