Social networks new rising target for cybercriminals
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Cybercriminals are focusing their efforts on social networks, given its rising popularity and potential to manipulate the user through "friend" messages.
Spammers are moving past email attachments and turning to Facebook and Myspace as new ways to trick users into installing viruses and spreading malware on the internet, NetworkWorld.com reports.
The cybercriminals have accomplished this by setting up fake accounts on the sites and breaking security safeguards such as CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart).
CAPTCHA, which has users type in a combination of letters and numbers to prove they are human, may be a reason some users assume the social networking site is secure. By breaking the safeguard, cybercriminals take advantage of that trust.
Last month Facebook won $873 million in damages against a Canadian resident accused of sending more than 4 million spam messages from members' profiles.
Though it was a victory for the popular social networking site, it soon reported the virus Koobface had intensified on Facebook and eventually spread to Myspace. The virus, first detected in August, had intensified thanks to messages with malicious code sent from the accounts of users' online friends.
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