LONDON: During annual conference, Facebook main focus and clear emphasis was on computer security.
In CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s keynote, the topic was easily overshadowed by all the new developer toys the social media company announced. But during the rest of the two-day conference, it was clear that security and infrastructure stability was top of mind for Facebook.
Facebook itself works to avoid the type of data breach that wreaked havoc on Sony Pictures Entertainment. Hackers have stung Facebook in the past, and the company clearly doesn’t want to subject itself to further embarrassment and public backlash.
This is one reason why Jennifer Henley, Facebook’s director of security operations, emphasized during a conference session how her company is working to bake better security practices into all aspects of its operations.
Facebook security engineer Ted Reed offered security suggestions of a more technical nature. Reed recommended that conference attendees particularly managers or executives that oversee software development tell coders to remove any secret tokens or keys that may be lurking around in your company’s source code.
He said that these could serve as gateways for hackers to penetrate a company’s back end. Developers are often not keen on scanning their source code for security holes because of the time involved. But doing so could help in preventing a potential data breach, he warned.
For Facebook, it is all about creating a company culture that values security in order to offset the chances of getting breached.
Reed said “It is hard, but it is very, very worth it.”
