Facebook ThreatExchange to mitigate cyber security risks

Facebook has introduced a new social networking website for security researchers around the world to collaborate and help make the Internet more secure and free from the malwares. Company has launched ThreatExchange for security experts to come forward and share information on the recent malwares and the loopholes.

The announcement comes as a result of problems faced by the security researchers and companies in sharing the confidential information about a security threat. If often happens that the individuals involved are in need of advice to mitigate the risk. However, their inability is that they cannot tell it anywhere else so that it doesn’t get caught by the prying eyes of the blackhats.

Facebook ThreatExchange will provide the experts with a communication channel to help other researchers, as well as the companies, to know more about the security threat and the possible solutions. Many businesses, including Yahoo and Pinterest, have already come forward to join this new platform.

“ThreatExchange is a platform created by Facebook that enables security professionals anywhere to share threat information more easily, learn from each other’s discoveries, and make their own systems safer,” the project’s website says. “We included a set of privacy controls so that participants can help protect any sensitive data by specifying who can see the threat information they contribute.”

“It was natural for us because our core service is a platform for sharing and because we already had a threat analysis framework called ThreatData that we could build upon,” Mark Hammell, manager of the Threat Infrastructure team, wrote in a blog post.

Facebook said the underlying structure is same as the current website, however, there have been few new APIs that have been developed keeping the concept in mind. Individuals belonging to a participating company can post security information on malwares and loopholes. It can be published either publicly or in a particular group.