News
Facebook Introduces Free Friend-To-Friend Payments Through Messages
March 2015 by
Facebook has announced a new payments feature for Facebook Messenger that allows you to connect your Visa or Mastercard and, at the tap of a button, send friends money on iOS, Android and desktop with zero fees.
Please see below for commentary. TK Keanini, CTO at Lancope:
“It has become a standard feature of social communities to have in-game or in-world commerce. Most online game communities offer this and from that perspective Facebook is late to the game.
This payment system is exciting and useful to everyone, including criminals, so everyone must do their part to secure their accounts. Remember, when your account is compromised, it effects everyone. Some people treat Facebook as a play account and don’t take security seriously, approving friend requests from complete strangers, accepting game invites from anyone, these accounts be more of a problem now that you can send and receive payments.”
Tim Erlin, director of security and risk, Tripwire
“While Facebook may be late to the mobile payments game, they’re large enough that they can still dominate the space. It’s not hard to imagine how this feature might expand from peer-to-peer transfers to compete with the likes of Apple and Google for payments to more traditional vendors. The Facebook platform, including the mobile app, is already a big target for attackers, but adding a financial component to messenger puts it in a different category. There’s simply no doubt that cyber criminals will immediately begin looking for ways to use this new feature to get into your wallet.”
