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I worked at both Google and Facebook. They both have very strong security teams and security procedures, but at the same time have a very high profile and a lot

by lacker 8y ago

I worked at both Google and Facebook. They both have very strong security teams and security procedures, but at the same time have a very high profile and a lot of hackers targeting them. Both companies have security failures frequently, but most of those failures are small enough that you wouldn't know about them unless you went looking. I think the biggest difference is that Facebook stores much more sensitive personal data, and stores more of it in a complicated product with a large surface area of possible vulnerabilities. In the search engine part of Google, the vast majority of data isn't even private. There's no point to hacking into Google search. Gmail does contain personal data, but it has far less surface area than the Facebook product. With Facebook, almost every new feature involves your personal data in some way, so all of those features have some security risk. There is also a related selection bias. If a service gets hacked, you might or might not hear about it. But if there is something like the communications of celebrities that are now made public, or the social media account of a celebrity that a hacker posted a message to, it's just much more exciting news than your average vulnerability. The nature of Facebook's product means that Facebook security issues often have this kind of highly-visible outcome.

zahrc 8y ago
Disclaimer I don't have Facebook anymore, since like 2015 so I don't know which data they require to register an account. I would disagree with you that Facebook stores more sensitive data. I mean just look at all the services Google offers, which might have way more critical data and lots of more data in general. If someone would just have access to one of my co-workers Google account he would've access to his phone numbers, addresses, names (contacts); access to all his private appointment's (calendar); mail; and maybe even critical documents and other files (gdrive + docs, ...); All of his searches, even voice commands (Google now); music, book, movie, game - preferences (Google play store) and not to forget social media (G+ and YouTube). The difference to Facebook is, that on social media you choose what you want to display in public, or to a certain group. (Verification methods are an exception here) When you use your private phone/Computer, you expect that the information will stay private until you share it somewhere. Of course it's hard to generalize that, everyone uses these services differently TL;Dr I think a Google account linked to an android phone of a "normal user" would be more valuable than a "normal" Facebook account.

by lacker 8y ago

zahrc 8y ago

Disclaimer I don't have Facebook anymore, since like 2015 so I don't know which data they require to register an account. I would disagree with you that Facebook stores more sensitive data. I mean just look at all the services Google offers, which might have way more critical data and lots of more data in general. If someone would just have access to one of my co-workers Google account he would've access to his phone numbers, addresses, names (contacts); access to all his private appointment's (calendar); mail; and maybe even critical documents and other files (gdrive + docs, ...); All of his searches, even voice commands (Google now); music, book, movie, game - preferences (Google play store) and not to forget social media (G+ and YouTube). The difference to Facebook is, that on social media you choose what you want to display in public, or to a certain group. (Verification methods are an exception here) When you use your private phone/Computer, you expect that the information will stay private until you share it somewhere. Of course it's hard to generalize that, everyone uses these services differently TL;Dr I think a Google account linked to an android phone of a "normal user" would be more valuable than a "normal" Facebook account.