Web Security News

Identity theft more likely for younger social networkers

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Members of online social networks may be more vulnerable to financial loss, identity theft and malware infection than they realize, particularly users of the younger generation, according to a new survey from Webroot.

The growing prevalence of spear-phishing attacks, spam and worms across social networks could be attributed to the more relaxed attitudes about privacy and web security displayed by young people ages 18-29.

Surveying over 1,100 members of Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter and other popular social networks, Webroot said huge numbers of users put their identities at risk.

Among younger users, 51 percent use the same password on multiple sites, versus 36 percent overall; 40 percent accept friend requests from strangers, versus 28 percent overall; and greater numbers share more personal information that may compromise online privacy (67 percent share birth date, versus 52 percent overall).

Because of these risks, younger users experience a security attack at a greater frequency - nearly 40 percent of younger users have been hit by cyberattacks versus 30 percent of all users.

On Facebook, the most popular of the sites with an estimated 200 million users worldwide, cybercriminals have recently targeted users with password-stealing phishing attacks and malware worms including Koobface and several spread through the domains mygener.im, ponbon.im and hunro.im.