The survey follows a summer of malicious apps, compromising hundreds of thousands of Facebook users' profiles, spreading virally across the network.
"Facebook is much more than a social networking website, it's a platform with over half a million active applications running upon it", explained Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos. "Inevitably some of these applications are written with malicious intent – designed to steal information, spread virally, or spam unsuspecting Facebook users. Anyone can write a Facebook application, and it can be made available to the site's over 500 million users without vetting. It's no wonder we see so many malicious attacks by rogue Facebook apps every day."
Ninety-five percent of those polled believe Facebook should follow Apple's example, and have a "walled garden", verifying all apps. "Apple has successfully run a 'walled garden' on its iPhone App Store, meaning that only approved apps are allowed to be run on the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch", said Cluley. "Although some people may not appreciate the level of control that Apple has over what apps you can run on your device, it certainly has been instrumental in keeping malicious hackers and malware off the platform."