Blog

Social networking sites are likely to become an increasingly attractive target for fraudsters, experts have warned.

The turn of the new year is expected to see the popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook continue.

However, IT security analysts say the proliferation of personal details and the availability of information on people’s date of birth, interests and phone numbers could be a way in for unscrupulous hackers.

ScanSafe has forecast that 2008 will see Web 2.0 threats top the list of the biggest security worries.

“The explosion in popularity of Web 2.0 applications has made Web 2.0 sites an increasingly rich target for cyber criminals,” the firm declared in its evaluation of the coming year.

Mary Landesman, senior security researcher at the firm, told the BBC the nature of the medium meant it could be targeted.

“The technologies that play there and the third party add-ons make it an environment that is susceptible to compromise,” she explained.

Cybercrime is said to be an industry worth more than $100 billion a year.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Security software company Sophos has revealed that the US relays more spam than any other country in the world.

Websites in the US are responsible for 28.4 per cent of all spam, followed by South Korea with 5.2 per cent and China, including Hong Kong, with 4.9 per cent.

Russia, Brazil and France are the fourth, fifth and sixth worst respectively for relaying spam, the Sophos report revealed.

Carole Theriault, senior security consultant at Sophos, said: ‘It seems as though a major American spammer is arrested every other week at the moment, but despite these high-profile lawbreakers being put away, the US continues to relay far more spam than any other nation on the planet.’

The spamming is not just the work of a few cyber criminals, but represents thousands of people controlling thousands of zombie computers, added Ms Theriault.

Recently, a security report from the Georgia Tech Information Security Centre warned that online videos are the new favoured way for cyber criminals to hide malicious code.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!