Facebook Bot

What Does Facebook Bot Mean?

A Facebook bot is an automated software program that is designed to create and control a fake Facebook account. A Facebook bot is completely automated software that generates a profile by scraping images and information from other sources. After setting up a fake profile, it spreads by friending other Facebook users.

Advertisements

Techopedia Explains Facebook Bot

In its most generic sense, a bot is any automated software that performs an automated task. While there are bots made for legitimate uses, a significant percentage are malicious. Bots on social media sites, known as social bots, fall into the category of malicious bots.

Social bots present an interesting security challenge given the trust factor in social networking as well as the emotional factor of users’ motivation to have as many “friends” as possible. It’s not uncommon for a Facebook user to accept a friend request even though the other user isn’t known. Based on the victim’s security settings, allowing a Facebook bot as a friend could open up the account to potential identity theft.

Facebook has strict systems in place to prevent socialbots. Even so, in a paper released in September 2011, a team from the University of British Columbia demonstrated the ability to create Facebook bots that successfully gained access to thousands of users’ profile information.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Latest Cybersecurity Terms

Related Reading

Margaret Rouse

Margaret Rouse is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical, business audience. Over the past twenty years her explanations have appeared on TechTarget websites and she's been cited as an authority in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine and Discovery Magazine.Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages. If you have a suggestion for a new definition or how to improve a technical explanation, please email Margaret or contact her…